COVID-19 infection risk management during construction activities: An approach based on Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)

The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is the worst health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge we are facing since World War II. It has caused a negative impact on engineering and construction industry, and huge uncertainty about the ability to anticipate a planned recovery for the industry. Waiting for an effective recovery that may take a long time, science has to provide solutions to coexist with this virus and resume the work on construction sites. In fact, it is not the first time that health and safety science deals with such a risk of infection, as many guidelines treat the manner to reduce the risk of infection to at-risk employees in construction, renovation, installation, and maintenance activities. This article aims to perform an infection risk analysis, taking into consideration COVID-19 particularities, and to identify control measures to ensure COVID-19 infection prevention and management on site. The study will be based on a probabilistic approach using the Fault Tree Analysis method.