Gorrin Village chief executive and director of care Robyn Woods-Gebler said it was pleasing the village reached the goal on September 16.

"We have had all of the residents fully vaccinated since April and the last staff member had their second dose last Thursday," she said.

"The only reason that took so long was most of the staff were not eligible for the Pfizer shot originally, they had to wait for the AstraZeneca shot, and that had a three-month gap.

"I don't know any other facility that has everybody fully vaccinated."

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Mrs Woods-Gebler said the staff at the village put in lots of work as early as possible to ensure all residents would feel as comfortable about getting vaccinated.

"We got the doctors to speak to them in groups and individually, then the nurses went around and explained everything that had been said," she explained.

"We went around and did all the consents, gave them another opportunity to ask questions, just put the work in basically."

"What a lot of facilities did was on the day the people arrived to do the vaccination, they slapped a consent form in front of them."

"The default position for any person with dementia is no, because it is the safest answer. If you are not 100% on what is being asked, the safest answer is no."

Mrs Woods-Gebler said the village didn't have any problems with the mandatory vaccination with the residents or their families.

"Their generation is very pro-vax anyway," she said.

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"They are all old enough to have seen people with polio, even more recently measles," she said."

"They are very accepting of science and of what experts tell them, we didn't think we would have a problem and we didn't."

"Their families were were all a one hundred percent behind it, which was good."

To avoid any COVID-19 breakouts in Gorrinn Village in the future, Mrs Woods-Gebler said they would prioritise the fully vaccinated.

"We check before any new resident comes in if they are fully vaccinated or not, so far it has not been an issue because they are all fully vaccinated," she said.

Gorrinn Village, or formerly known as the Ararat Retirement Village, was formed in 1970.

The retirement village offers a 60-bed nursing home and 38 independent living units.

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