COVID-19 Pandemic Highlights Prefab Industry's Critical Need and Value

Today the world faces an unprecedented situation. For its entirety, human could always see their enemy but today the human race is fighting a battle against an adversary, which is not only invisible but also potent and very highly unpredictable. Hence, the solution to the problem is also extraordinary. Desperate times need desperate measures. Lockdown is just that. Time is of great essence. Medical Infrastructure is the need of the hour. However, bricks and stones are not enough or quick enough. Prefabrication industries step in. Need quarantine rooms? We have Porta Cabins. Need a large structure for mass isolation? We have prefabricated structures and prefabricated buildings. Need infrastructure to stop labor movement? We have prefabricated labor hutments. The virus is spreading rapidly and hence timing is everything. One day too late might turn out to be catastrophic. Therefore, infrastructure also needs a quick gradation. The prefabrication industry is today playing a major role in constructing makeshift hospitals, quarantine facilities, and even site offices for government officials. Police control rooms are being set up and in other countries labor colonies and labor hutments are being set up by using Pre-engineered building and PEB technology. BMC or Bombay Municipal Corporation is planning to prepare a 3-storey pre-engineered building for an isolation facility. Assam Government has even issued a tender for five PEBs that will be used as quarantine facilities. China is the biggest example of how the Prefabrication industry has become a solution to all infrastructure problems. China built 2 Corona Virus hospitals in just 12 days and the capacity of those hospitals is 1600 beds each! Prefabricated structures are being used to build ICUs and are helping the medical infrastructure reach the point of requirement. Porta Cabins and Prefabricated rooms are being used to isolate and quarantine patients with doubt which was not possible earlier. This has helped reduce community transmission in countries like Italy and Spain. Prefabricated structures can be prepared in as fast as 7 days and help ramp up the medical infrastructure. There is no shadow of a doubt that without the prefabricated structures, the situation in the world would be direr than it is today. If the current situation is anything to go by, PEB is going to be used more extensively. Prefabricated Structures are the present and future of the construction industry and this has been highlighted by its usage during the most calamitous time the human race has probably ever faced.