MORE coronavirus cases have been confirmed at the Royal Mail sorting office.

Near the end of October, 15 staff in the Dorcan facility tested positive for Covid-19 and the delivery office closed briefly in July when two colleagues had the disease.

As of this week, the total number of cases confirmed at the site since the pandemic began now stands at 35. More than 1,000 people work there.

Employees from the mail centre do not interact with the members of the public who pop in to pick up parcels from the collection point.

Public Health England has previously advised that no extra Covid precautions are needed for handling post or packages.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Royal Mail takes the health and safety of its colleagues, its customers and the local communities in which we operate very seriously.

"We have had 35 colleagues in total tested positive for coronavirus at the Swindon Delivery Office. They are now recuperating at home and we wish them a speedy recovery.

"The number of cases in the unit has slowed down in the last 10 days. We have carried out an intensive clean of the site and have organised additional cleaning of key touch points and all communal areas.

"We are keeping the CWU, PHE and colleagues updated. We are currently processing mail as normal at our Swindon Delivery Office, and the office is open as normal. "

"Throughout this crisis, every decision we make puts the health of our people and customers first. We have put in place a range of preventive measures to protect both our customers and our colleagues.

"We were the first UK company to put in place social-distancing measures in relation to parcel delivery. We pioneered contact-free delivery.

"We are temporarily not handing over our hand-held devices to customers to capture signatures.

"As well as encouraging good hand hygiene, standard ways of working have been revised to ensure that colleagues maintain appropriate social distancing at all times.

"All staff have been briefed about the social distancing measures jointly agreed by local management and the CWU. This has been supplemented with visible reminders such as posters and one-way floor markings."