The rollout of the coronavirus vaccine to people in disability residential care has been an "abject failure", an inquiry has heard.
The royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability is hearing evidence on Monday about problems with the vaccine rollout.
Royal commission chair Ron Sackville told the hearing disability organisations had at a meeting in April expressed "serious concern at the apparently slow pace of the vaccine rollout for people with disability and disability care workers".
"We heard from the organisations that the delay in vaccinating people with disability and the lack of information was having a significant adverse impact on people with disability," he said.
The federal government announced its vaccine rollout strategy in January, prioritising aged care and disability care residents and their carers.
Counsel assisting, Kate Eastman, said that by March 3 - according to health department figures - just under 100 people in disability residential care had received one dose of vaccine.
"By April 21 this year 746 people with disability in disability residential care facilities had received one or two doses, and within this cohort 117 people had received two doses of the vaccine," she said.
Only 75 disability residential care workers had received two doses and 819 had received one.
She said by May 6, 834 people with disability in residential care had been vaccinated - a rise of only 200 since the April data.
Of these only 127 had received two doses.
"Commissioners, based on the data alone it may be open to you to find that the Australian government rollout of vaccines to people with disability in residential care - and these are people who represent some of the most vulnerable people in our population - has been an abject failure," she said.
Disabled man Greg Tucker asked the commission why the rollout was taking so long.
"We are a much smaller country than the US and they've already had 200 million people vaccinated and we only have two million vaccinated," he said.
Another witness, disabled man Uli Kaplan, said the government needed to "throw politics out the window, stop saying (Australia is) going to be the best country."
"Don't underestimate our intelligence, we're quite switched on.
"Just give us the vaccine."
It comes as Health Minister Greg Hunt said there would be an "acceleration" in the rollout to disability care residents.
He said as of Monday there had been 999 disability care residents and 1527 workers vaccinated.
There were four ways in which they could get their jabs: through a private provider at the care facility, through a primary health network at the facility, via their GP or via a state-based Pfizer clinic.
"What we've seen is a significant opening up in different states and territories which allows that to accelerate," he told reporters in Melbourne on Monday.
Hunt also cited zero cases in disability care as a sign of success.
"We are keeping them safe and making sure they are safe going forward."
Earlier, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians said it was concerned about the slow rollout to disabled people, calling for more transparency.
"The government's daily vaccination updates do not provide comprehensive data about the progress of vaccination of people with disabilities," president John Wilson said in a statement.
"This may be masking the very low numbers of vaccinations that have been delivered in disability care settings."
The inquiry continues.
