Over 1,500 prisoners flee to escape COVID-19 as officials refuse to give them a break (video)

Many prisoners have reportedly fled from a semi-open correctional facility in Sao Paulo, south-east of Brazil after authorities cancelled their Easter holidays over COVID-19 scare.

Reports say not less than 1,500 inmates fled from prison units in Mongaguá, Tremembé, Mirandópolis and Porto Feliz on Monday, March 16.

According to Brazilian media outlet GI, the government postponed the annual Easter prison break for prisoners in semi-open units as a measure to curb the spread of the dreaded coronavirus.

The annual event was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, March 17, to allow them to visit their families and return after a given period.

The Secretariat of Penitentiary Administration is quoted as saying: "The measure was necessary because the benefit would contemplate more than 34 thousand sentenced of the semi-open regime that, returning to prison, would have high potential to install and spread the coronavirus in a vulnerable population, generating health risks to servers and custodians."

In the wave of COVID-19, the Brazilian government agencies implemented restrictions on the entry and circulation of people. Police have already recaptured 41 inmates from the Mongaguá unit which was holding 2,796 against it’s carrying capacity of 1,640.

The South American nation has recorded over 230 confirmed cases.

The country’s president Jair Bolsonaro who had previously claimed the infection was a media fantasy was himself infected and put in isolation.

"We have a crisis at the moment, a small crisis. In my opinion, much more fantasy, the issue of the coronavirus, which is not all that the mainstream media propagates or propagates throughout the world," Jair Bolsonaro said on March 3.

The virus has killed over 7,000 people across the globe and many thousands have been infected.

Over 1,500 prisoners flee to escape COVID-19 as officials refuse to give them a break (video)

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