Can a ‘psychological vaccine’ protect against fake news and COVID misinformation?

At his suburban Melbourne medical practice, GP Dr Billy Stoupas has been fielding an “unprecedented” number of vaccine questions from patients.

The questions started when the US approved the Pfizer vaccine two months ago and have been increasing ahead of the Australian rollout — now only weeks away.

Things like: How did they get the vaccine ready to go so quickly? How do we know it’s safe? Which one would you get?

“We spend time discussing things like that and try to reassure people,” he says.

Australians are overwhelmingly supportive of vaccinations in general, but surveys show a higher than usual rate of hesitancy about the COVID jab.

This is to be expected — COVID vaccines have been developed very fast, so it’s natural to ask how they…