A further 2,000 prison workers are off sick with the virus, leaving jails housing dangerous criminals understaffed, it is claimed.
Data from the Prison Officers’ Association shows that eight per cent of all jail staff are currently not working due to the virus.
Figures from Britain’s biggest trade union for prison workers also show that 55 inmates have died of coronavirus this year.
And 66 jails are presently suffering from outbreaks of the virus, more than half of the 117 prisons operating in the UK.
It comes as a 52-year-old prison officer based at Elmley Prison on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent died from the virus last week.
Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “Measures are difficult to adhere to in a prison because of confined space.
“I think we have controlled it more effectively than society, because of the restrictions we’ve put in place and the safety measures we’re adhering to.
In April, Public Health England published a report predicting an astonishing 2,700 deaths among inmates from Covid-19 if no action was taken to curtail the spread of the virus in jails.