Man dresses as bush to go out during coronavirus lockdown: 'Reaching new extremes of how to sneak out'
People around the world aren't taking the concept of quarantine very well, with one creative individual deciding their way out would be to dress up like a bush and sneak out of their home.
The hilarious stunt was caught on camera by Nicholas Murray and Madeline Mai-Davies, a young couple from Stevenage in the UK, who saw their neighbor trying to break the rut of isolation by putting on a bush suit.
They shared the clip on social media platform TikTok, where it was viewed more than 16 million times.
In the video, uploaded by Mai-Davies (@maddiedavies.x) with the caption, "Neighbors back at it again sneaking out during lockdown," the person appears to be joking around and can be seen overly-dramatizing the whole act.
He waits for a red car to pass before sneaking and scuttling across the top of the driveway down to the neighborhood drag. He also rolls around on the grass before hilariously running away.
Two different clips of the same prank were also shared by Mai-Davies's boyfriend, Murray (@repnicktv), who wrote, "Next door neighbor has taken things to new extremes."
At the end of one of the clips, which together clocked over 130,000 views, the bush appears to be returning home with a grocery bag in hand.
"Got his shopping. Turning up to the party while on lockdown," Murray wrote in a follow-up post, adding the hashtag "wannapartychallenge” at the end.
"Looking back, I didn’t expect the video to go that viral and get 16.5 million views. Whilst in this difficult time we want to bring smiles, laughs, and hope," he later said about the video.
"I was overwhelmed with the support and following that came from it," Mai-Davies added.
However, some have questioned the veracity of the video because Murray has previously posted on his TikTok page that showed him pulling the same prank using a similar costume and dubbing himself as the "bushman."
In one such video, captioned "They got so scared," he hides behind a wall dressed as the bushman and waits for unsuspecting pedestrians to walk by before jumping out and scaring them. He repeats the prank across several different locations, with the clip being liked over 24,000 times.
The UK currently has one of the worst outbreaks of the novel coronavirus across the world and has over 22,465 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive for COVID-19 recently after showing mild symptoms. Downing Street said Johnson is self-isolating and continuing to lead the country's response to the pandemic.
The country has been placed under lockdown to control the outbreak and all non-essential shops except for food shops, pharmacies, corner shops, hardware stores, petrol stations, pet shops, post offices, banks, newsagents and shops inside hospitals have been ordered to close.
Parks were decreed to remain open but gyms, play-parks, and all places of worship except for funerals will also be closed. Police were given the power to fine anyone who broke the rules of the quarantine.