So who doesn't love vaccines?

New research from CQUniversity reveals that those with higher socioeconomic status have the lowest rates of vaccination. Gabrielle Bryden wanted to know what made vaccine sceptics tick. She calls it the privilege paradox and says we need to target those who think that "doing your own research" is better than decades of peer-reviewed science. She's looked at the postcode data and the non-vaxxed congregate in Noosa, Queensland; in the NSW Northern Rivers, in inner-city areas. She says most residents of remote areas are fully vaccinated and Catholics are extremely vaccinated.

The pandemic has somehow leveraged all the anti-science people and given them a platform for their derangements which include, sorry to say this word in public, "wellness". That wellness embraces magical thinking. There is, in fact, a magical health belief scale, including the idea that red cordial will make your blood turn redder. They must all be Pete Evans groupies. One of the key traits of these sceptics is that "natural is better". Tigers. Sharks. Shrooms (results may vary). Positivity, purity and naturalness.

They are, says Bryden, not interested in science.

"There is no logical or empirical basis to their thinking."

But they get a lot of airtime. I asked Bryden to look at the interaction between Karl Stefanovic and Nick Coatsworth on Channel Nine's Today show broadcast on Wednesday morning.

Don't get me wrong. I have a slight enthusiasm for Stefanovic. I have met him in person only once and he was just lovely. Warm. Polite. Asked questions which made it look like he was interested. Told me to take care as I walked outside on a damp day outside the Channel Nine studio.

Which is weird because that's not how it looks on national television. And it's not how it appears when we read reports of his public brawls with Pup, otherwise known as Michael Clarke, the former Australian Test captain.

But this week, Stefanovic was on national television spruiking the whole #DiedSuddenly thing. It made me so mad. For those who don't know, that's a conspiracy theory which says there's been a spate of sudden deaths of those who have had a COVID vaccine recently. Coatsworth was one of the medical officers we saw on parade at the start of the pandemic. He was the bloke who told us COVID wasn't airborne. Plus some weird vibe about kids and masks. I dunno, whenever I watched Coatsworth, I wasn't convinced.

Bryden was shocked by the conversation.

"Stefanovic is feeding into conspiracy theories. It's beyond belief. The vaccine is safe. There is some evidence of cardiac issues among young people but COVID itself is leading to lots of cardiac issues down the track."

And Bryden points out the #DiedSuddenly brigade roars into life even when there is zero evidence.

I was shocked by what I saw but for a different reason. Nick Coatsworth has high status and gets a lot of airtime. He appeared to me to dismiss concerns about getting COVID. When he said, "If you're relatively healthy, over 60 years old and you're living at home and you're independent and you've had your doses of vaccine, then the likelihood of you going to hospital with COVID is extraordinarily small. And I don't think we've communicated that well.

"And the health department's still going out and saying you all need to be worried. They don't need to be worried. My patients don't need to be worried because most of them don't have the severe medical conditions that warrant that."

Coatsworth tells me it's about defining very clearly who is in the at-risk groups. We can't even get people to sneeze into their freaking elbow let alone get them to understand nuance, so that might be a struggle.

In Australia, we are not up-to-date with our COVID vaccines. Julie Leask, vaccination expert and a professor in the school of nursing and midwifery at the University of Sydney, believes some of us aren't even aware that we should have three or more doses.

"We need very clear information and inform people about the value proposition of boosters. That requires clear risk communication and killer facts.

"If you have a booster, you are half as likely to go to hospital with severe disease," she says.

MORE JENNA PRICE:

So what kind of a campaign would qualify as clear risk communication. I assumed we would need someone hot - and also mature - to tell us the benefits of vaccination. A kind of Australian Helen Mirren. I couldn't think of one. So I asked Dee Madigan of Campaign Edge who she would recommend as the face of senior vaccination in this country, someone who has fans.

John Howard, she says. John Howard.

Surely, I say, what about Paul Keating?

"I reckon Keating fans are vaccinated," says Madigan.

Whoever it is, we need someone with a strategy pronto. If Howard would work, great, let's do it. Not my jam but anything to improve the numbers of those vaccinated . And we need a campaign.

Says Madigan: "The danger with any campaign is talking inside the bubble without realising it. I always remind my clients they are not the target market. As George Bernard Shaw may or may not have said The Biggest Problem in Communication Is the Illusion That It Has Taken Place."

And, as we deal with COVID misinformation, the illusion that we can trust the people with power and influence.