About 5% of Australians say they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine if one ever becomes available and another 10% are indifferent, a study suggests.

But objections to being given a vaccine in Australia are rarer than in the US or France, which researchers attribute to good trust in the Federal Government’s response to the pandemic.

The palpable threat of coronavirus, compared with other infectious diseases, may also have overcome some level of hesitancy, they say.

The findings were based on an online survey of 4400 Australians in mid-April, “a time when potential deaths of health system capacity were still of great concern”, the researchers wrote in a research letter to the Lancet Infectious Diseases.