General News
6 September, 2026
Call the doctor: Rebuilding trust after the pandemic
Why has distrust of vaccination grown since the pandemic? Dr Felix argues the answer may lie less in logic and more in unresolved social and psychological trauma.
I've been avoiding writing about vaccination for some time now because I know that doing so will make some readers uncomfortable.
What I want to write about is the trauma that is associated with immunisations, not as a result of the pain of the needle or any adverse reactions, but the trauma that is felt due to what has happened in relation to vaccines.
Since COVID, there has been a considerable reduction in the use of all vaccines; sadly, we are now seeing increased rates of some serious preventable conditions like measles.
Why is this happening?
Medicines that people used to be completely fine with are now being rejected.
It doesn't make a great deal of logical sense that distrust of new vaccines would cause someone to then distrust old vaccines they were previously fine with.
I feel the answer lies in what is now associated with vaccination, and sadly that is a lot of trauma.
During the pandemic, people suffered due to the way in which infection control and vaccination were rolled out.
People were kept from seeing family, ostracised and outcast from social groups and community events.
People lost jobs, businesses, careers. People were locked indoors in terrible conditions.
People's lives fell apart.
I remember living in South Melbourne; I watched from a distance as police officers shot peaceful protestors at close range on the shrine of remembrance with ‘less lethal’ ammunition, as hundreds of people in active wear jogged by only 50 metres away.
Hard-working men and women sworn to protect our community formed a firing line so as to more efficiently target the citizens running away from them.
Our society was hurting.
I imagine that for a lot of people reading this, there is a feeling of disquiet.
Perhaps your heart is racing, you have a lump in your throat, or there is a sense of frustration, anger, angst or sadness.
That is to be expected when there has been trauma.
I honestly don't think our society has processed what happened those few years ago; it was so awful that as soon as people could forget about it, we did.
But it haunts us; we see it in the growth of distrust in institutions, proliferation of conspiracy theories and extreme views, rising drug use and doom-scrolling addiction, worsening mental health, and people choosing to avoid healthcare, vaccination included.
For me, the pandemic wasn't about the virus or treatments for it, despite at the time working in a hospital treating the viral illness.
For me it was about our psychological and social health, namely the harms that occurred to the fabric of our community and its culture.
While many of us got through the COVID years intact, some even with a sense of solidarity, a large number of us in our communities were seriously harmed, and their lives have not been healthy since.
If we want to see vaccination rates against measles improve, it isn't patronising judgement and scaremongering that will do it.
The effects of trauma are often not solved with logic or pressure; they are softened with care, understanding, acceptance and patience.
To reach a place where people are able to forgive, even when the who or what they are forgiving hasn't asked for it, or even accepted responsibility, is where we need to arrive.
Humans contain this amazing grace, though they need support to find it within them.
We can all play our part in helping our society heal from the pandemic, and that is best done through authentically non-judgemental and compassionate conversations.