Uncovering Construction Site–Specific Transmission Patterns of COVID-19: A Spatiotemporal Connectivity Analysis in Hong Kong
Publication: Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 39, Issue 1
Abstract
To adapt to the prolonged pandemic, the construction industry, which has a high vulnerability to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, has sought more sector-specific and individual-level nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Understanding infection transmission patterns can determine what, when, and how NPIs should be implemented. This study examined infection transmission proceeding from construction sites using spatiotemporal analysis with COVID-19 case cluster data from construction sites in Hong Kong. The study revealed that COVID-19 transmission diffuses from the workplace to residential neighborhoods where infected construction workers live but not to the surroundings of infected construction sites. The average number of offspring cases infected by each seed case in the first to fifth transmission generations were 7.8, 26.1, 10.6, 3.6, and 1.3, respectively. Around 18% of cases were responsible for 79.6% of all COVID-19 transmission, driven mainly by workplace and household settings. The study found that closing a workplace within two working days after a primary case is identified can help reduce the attack rate by 5.33%. Encouraging household members of infected construction workers to follow quarantines can reduce offspring cases by 15.84% on average. A priori identification of superspreaders can help remove half of COVID-19 cases.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Journal of Management in Engineering
Volume 39 • Issue 1 • January 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 23, 2021
Accepted: Aug 16, 2022
Published online: Oct 20, 2022
Published in print: Jan 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 20, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Case studies
- Construction engineering
- Construction industry
- Construction management
- Construction sites
- Diseases
- Electric power
- Employment
- Energy engineering
- Engineering fundamentals
- Epidemic and pandemic
- Health hazards
- Labor
- Methodology (by type)
- Personnel management
- Power transmission
- Practice and Profession
- Public administration
- Public health and safety
- Research methods (by type)
- Residential construction
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Cited by
- Ziyue Yuan, Zhongnan Ye, Yi Zhang, Shu-Chien Hsu, Identifying Potential Superspreaders of Airborne Infectious Diseases in Construction Projects, Journal of Management in Engineering, 10.1061/JMENEA.MEENG-5497, 39, 6, (2023).