“If COVID gets into one of these homes it will spread like wildfire and these residents will die,” he said. Kate Marshall, assistant state secretary of Health and Community Services Union, estimates 98 per cent of disability workers who were meant to be in Australia’s first wave of vaccinations – group 1a – had not yet got the shot. Some members have been told by GPs they would have to be put on vaccine waiting lists for three or four months to receive their first jab, she said. In contrast, almost all of the residents in the approximately 200 aged care homes that are run by the Victorian government have received their first dose (some residents in these homes received AstraZeneca while others got Pfizer).