Medway soldier helps sister take coronavirus test at asymptomatic site in Chatham
14:33, 23 December 2020
updated: 14:38, 23 December 2020
A soldier helped his key worker sister take her coronavirus test while on deployment back in his home town.
L Cpl Jack Lewis, who is from Medway, returned to the Towns as part of the unit sent to help set up and run asymptomatic testing.
He is stationed at the site based at the Deep End on the University of Greenwich campus in Chatham where he is section commander for swab collection.
His sister Joanne Preston, a primary school teacher at Miers Court in Rainham, attended the site as part of Medway Council's community targeted testing scheme.
The programme, which opened on December 5, is testing key workers and residents in selected areas to see if they have the virus despite not showing symptoms.
Sapper L Cpl Lewis, of 35 Engineer Regiment based in Essex, is tasked with quality control handling all the test swabs taken by people attending and then processed for analysis.
The siblings grew up together in Medway and have a close bond.
Older sister Joanne is often acting as mum when they were children and her ambitions to become a teacher were inspired by helping teach her younger brother while he was growing up.
L Cpl Lewis, now 26, joined the army aged 17 and has served with his regiment for nine years.
He said: "It’s been busy, we didn’t know quite what to expect as our day to day role as engineers is very different, but we’re trying to keep the flow as smooth as possible for the people coming through.
"Before Covid-19 I saw my sister a lot, it’s been difficult to keep up the contact especially now we live in different households and with me on task.
"For me it’s nice to be able to help out my local community, especially when I first heard about Medway going into Tier 3.
"It’s good to be able to play a part in protecting my family and give back to my hometown. By testing my sister, I can see first hand she’s being kept safe."
Joanne, 33, added: "Jack and I have always been very close, when I found out he’d be working at a particular site I wanted to book my test there.
"Getting to see him in such an active role made me very proud, he did a great job of explaining the process clearly although he couldn’t remember if I still had tonsils."
The Medway Resilience Unit has been formed of three regiments to get testing sites up and running and assist Medway Council.
So far, 24,000 tests have been carried out with 446 people testing positive who did not know they had the virus.
It was revealed the military will be standing down from the testing programme and is to be taken over by civilian teams employed by Medway Council's commercial arm, Medway Commercial Group.
