Ditchmen • NUCA of Florida Ditchmen - August 2020 | Page 6

Readers Respond: 44% of
respondents had a co-worker
test positive for COVID-19
By Joe
Bousquin
to nearly 166,000 deaths.
Total coronavirus case counts
continued to grow this week,
with 5.2 million recorded in
the U.S. since March, leading
Since the beginning of the pandemic,
construction workers who were deemed
essential and continued to report to work
have had an increased risk of exposure
to the virus, compared to office staff
working remotely. While that has kept
many construction workers on the payroll,
it has often come with a harrowing choice
between staying safe or continuing to earn
money.
Last week Construction Dive asked readers
how COVID-19 has personally impacted
them, and for those who have tested
positive for the virus, what their experience
was like. Twelve percent of respondents
said they had tested positive.
In addition, nearly half of our respondents,
or 44%, said that someone within their
company had tested positive, and 27% said
someone on their jobsite had contracted
the virus. But the third largest cohort, at 24%,
said they didn’t know anyone who had been
infected.
A worker testing positive on a jobsite was
the biggest concern among readers, at 42%.
Another 31% said rumors of cases on their
jobsites were as disconcerting as knowing
they had actually occurred.
Of those who said they had tested positive
for COVID-19, 44% said they had fully
recovered, but many said they still felt
lingering effects. Feelings of isolation and
depression affected 11% of respondents
who dealt with the virus.
How people reacted to their own or a coworker’s
testing positive seems to have
varied by the severity of symptoms they
experienced, witnessed or heard about.
“We have had one person
test positive in our company,”
one reader wrote. “He had no
symptoms other than loss of
taste and smell, but other than
our one employee, I do not know
anyone else who has tested
positive.”
4 DITCHMEN • AUGUST 2020