I’ve been working as a GP in the northern suburbs of Melbourne for close to six years and I have watched as our community increasingly struggles with all sorts of chronic health conditions, mental health issues and poverty-related challenges.

What has always simmered under the surface, a microcosm of a more general phenomenon, is a growing divide in attitudes to medical professionals and views about medicine.

I’ve seen an increasing number of people espouse anti-vax views and, now, pseudoscientific rhetoric and conspiracy theories relating to coronavirus.

It is clear there is a growing mistrust of health authorities and it’s slowly tearing our community apart.