How Modular is fighting Covid-19

Last month we featured a large project with a one-year turnaround. But what about when you need that structure yesterday?

The world is in a crisis. COVID-19, informally known as the Coronavirus, is spreading rapidly around the world. Countries as far-spread as China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, and now the United States are feeling the effects. Hospitals are—or soon will be—overwhelmed with seriously ill patients needing bed space and ventilators.

In times like these, the ability to rapidly erect temporary shelters and build out medical facilities immediately are of primary concern.

China, a top-down authoritarian state, was able to build two massive temporary hospitals with over 2600 beds in just over a week. (see how they did it, here.) It couldn’t have been done without modular techniques.

Italy, France and South Korea have all responded to the crisis with large temporary builds including hospitals, triage centers, and other vital infrastructure.

New York City, currently ground zero for more than half of all the cases in the USA, is looking at several options including turning the Javits Convention center into a temporary 2,000-bed hospital.

(credit: Ajay Suresh, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

This will require a large-scale modular and prefab retrofit to make spaces suitable for clinical isolation and intensive care treatment of thousands of critically ill patients while protecting caregivers and the city at large.

Other options include reopening closed hospitals upstate, converting underused or closed nursing homes, and constructing new modular or mobile facilities.

Executive Director Tom Hardiman of The Modular Building Institute has declared that the industry trade association “is coordinating a national response to this crisis to help address the shortage of treatment facilities and patient rooms, and to help with facilities for surge capacity and necessary swing space.”

The private modular and temporary construction industry has the joint capability to erect approximately 300,000 square feet, or 600 to 800 beds, per week.

From providing drive-up testing centers to constructing intensive care units, government and military contractors including the Army and U.S. Corps of Engineers and their civilian partners will play a vital role.

Nadler Modular has the experience and capability to provide structures and logistics for projects such as these.

For example, we are currently working on a project that was commissioned before the current crisis, but one whose capabilities will likely be called upon as soon as it is brought online. This is a 1600 square foot modular facility with exam rooms and a lead lined X ray facility that was recently contracted for completion within a three-month construction window.

More details will be revealed as this project moves towards completion.

While a three-month window is relatively fast, the current need is for rapid construction of facilities in just weeks—even days—to meet a rapidly evolving, very dynamic situation. Nadler modular is ready to step up and perform under the most demanding conditions, from complete builds on bare-ground sites to re-purposing existing facilities with modular and prefab construction, furnishings, and equipment.

Keep tuned in to this rapidly-developing story, and please, everyone:

Stay inside, stay safe, and thank our essential services providers who are fighting to keep us all protected!