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So many students have been taking coronavirus tests that post boxes in hotspots are overflowing.
Pictures have emerged of piles of tests waiting to be collected in Nottingham amid fears that the city is heading towards a local lockdown.
Sport rehabilitation student Amy Collins, 21, was shocked to discover the collection point near her home was rammed with home test packs.
She said: ‘My housemate has symptoms so we were actually posting a test for her. We went to that post office and it was so full.
‘The postbox was filled right up to the top. Whether that was just the top half, the whole box or just as much as I could see inside it.
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‘Everything you could see inside the postbox was home kits. It’s pretty unnerving and it made me realise how much it was affecting the student population more than anything’
Last week, 425 University of Nottingham students tested positive for coronavirus with many of them living in shared housing.
The university said numbers are high because it is running its own testing programme, which is catching more asymptomatic cases.
The spike contributed to the city becoming the fifth worst affected place in England, with an infection rate of 440.1 per 100,000 people.
Nottingham City Council has asked residents to stop meeting people outside their household in anticipation of stricter laws being introduced by the Government.
Amy says that many students are worried about what the next few weeks might bring.
‘The situation at university is a bit stressful because obviously, we’re wondering if there’s going to be a lockdown and when we will be able to go home to your family safely’, she said.
‘The university has done well in terms of online education type things but it’s more about like can we go home, can we see friends.
‘That is a bit rubbish to have to think about when you should be at uni having fun but it’s just kind of the way it is at the moment.’
Royal Mail confirmed that due to larger volumes of tests than normal, it has increased collections at the postbox in Ilkeston Road, Nottingham.
A spokesperson said: ‘We take the privacy, health and safety of our customers very seriously. This priority postbox is in an area of Nottingham where there is a high student population. The postbox has received larger than usual volumes of completed test kits in the last 24 hours following a recent spike in student cases.
‘We already carry out three daily clearances of this postbox from Monday to Friday. We are introducing two additional clearances at around 10am and 7pm over the next 48 hours.
‘We are also in touch with local educational establishments to see if we can help manage the collection of test kits in any other way. We continue to monitor the situation which we are keeping under review.’
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