COVID-19 has killed 16 members of jail workers because the starting of the pandemic, stunning new figures reveal.

An additional 2,000 jail staff are off sick with the virus, leaving jails housing harmful criminals understaffed, it’s claimed.

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Covid has killed 16 prison staff and 2,000 are off sick with the virus

Covid has killed 16 jail workers and a couple of,000 are off sick with the virusCredit score: PA:Press Affiliation

Knowledge from the Jail Officers’ Affiliation exhibits that eight per cent of all jail workers are at the moment not working as a result of virus.

Figures from Britain’s largest commerce union for jail staff additionally present that 55 inmates have died of coronavirus this yr.

And 66 jails are presently affected by outbreaks of the virus, greater than half of the 117 prisons working within the UK.

It comes as a 52-year-old jail officer based mostly at Elmley Jail on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent died from the virus final week.

Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Jail Officers’ Affiliation, mentioned: “Measures are troublesome to stick to in a jail due to confined house.

“We’re doing all we presumably can and attempting to stay to the regime and steadiness between offering a regime and maintaining family contact to prisoners.

“I feel now we have managed it extra successfully than society, due to the restrictions we’ve put in place and the protection measures we’re adhering to.

Covid has killed 16 jail workers and a couple of,000 are off sick with the virus

“I feel everyone must be recommended for it as a result of it may very well be a lot worse.

“I feel we deserve an accolade.”

In April, Public Well being England revealed a report predicting an astonishing 2,700 deaths amongst inmates from Covid-19 if no motion was taken to curtail the unfold of the virus in jails.