Thanks to clarifications from California Governor Gavin Newsom, construction work has been classified as one of the state’s “essential” services and will be allowed to proceed, with certain health and social distancing precautions, amid the increasing social and economic shutdown resulting from the spread of COVID-19. 

On Thursday night, the state moved to shut down nonessential businesses as varying degrees of “shelter in place” directives took effect across California, including in the nine county San Francisco Bay Area and in Los Angeles County. 

In a recent report, Politico’s Carla Marinucci and Katy Murphy write that “plans are in the works to deploy tens of thousands of construction workers to retool and refit hospitals, hotels and buildings the state needs as a surge response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

The reporters interview Robbie Hunter, president of the California Building and Construction Trades Council, who anticipates a construction surge to help meet a looming increase in COVID-19 patients. The reporters write that construction workers who have had their work disrupted due to the spread of the virus “are expected to move into new priority projects related to fighting the coronavirus.” 

The move comes as other American cities, notably Boston, shut down construction projects to varying degrees to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus and as the economic and day-to-day impacts of the COVID-19 crisis begin to be felt by the architecture and construction industries.