Virginia Navy divers set up a New York vaccination site. After 13 weeks, they’re coming home

After 13 weeks in New York City’s medically-underserved Jamaica neighborhood, the Little Creek-based sailors from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2, like the Navy medical team they supported, came to feel a part of the community.

Now, however, they’re coming home. They turned the vaccination site they set up back to New York state authorities on Tuesday.

Their mission, vaccinating people in a part of New York hard hit by COVID-19 and where demand for vaccines was outstripping local resources, is accomplished, now that there’s less of a vaccination rush in the city.
All in all, the 139-strong Navy team — 48 from the two Little Creek units along with medical personnel from eight different commands, including Portsmouth Naval Medical Center — vaccinated some 225,000 people.