There’s a mass grave with the bodies of those 83 people tucked away behind the local TAFE – a stark reminder of the battle the town waged against the Spanish flu more than 100 years ago as it prepares for the onslaught of another pandemic.

Cherbourg is in a race against time to get the community vaccinated as misinformation from local religious groups and on social media is rife, leading to fears Covid-19 will swamp the tiny town three hours northwest of Brisbane.

“If we had (Covid-19) here, we have that much chronic disease it’ll be like a war zone,” local historian Eric Law AM says.

Despite authorities warning Queenslanders Covid-19 would “hunt” down the unvaccinated, the race to protect Cherbourg kicked into high gear just three weeks ago.

Official federal government data, based on where people register their Medicare card, shows Cherbourg has the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rate of any council area in the country with just 39.5 per cent having their first dose.

The council, led by Mayor Elvie Sandow, says the figures are indeed much higher when the Queensland Health data is pulled by population within postcodes.

According to that data about 70 per cent of people in the 4605 area — which covers Cherbourg and Murgon — have had a first dose and more than 50 per cent of people are fully vaccinated.

Social media misinformation is rife and anger among some community members about being “coerced” to get the jab is red hot — something Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk faced during her trip to Cherbourg on Wednesday.

The daily Covid-19 press conference, meant to be held outdoors in the park, was moved to the confines of the TAFE building.

Irene Landers, 63, who waited to catch a glimpse of the Premier outside the council building, says she feels as though she hadn’t been given a choice about getting the jab.

Michelle Bligh says she is worried about what is in the vaccine and what it will do to your immune system. She is refusing to get the vaccine.

The Premier, being yelled at by a Cherbourg local about the Covid-19 jab, tried to assuage her fears by saying the vaccine was “very safe”.

Mr Law, a retired history teacher who was also once Cherbourg’s first superintendent, says he is “bitterly disappointed” at the town’s vaccination rates.

“Social media information that they’re reading has really gotten to a stage where they are petrified to ever have a go of it,” he says

Cr Sandow says some of the misinformation had also come from two religious groups in town against the Covid-19 vaccine.

Mater Health’s Dr Catherine Gilbert, who has been leading the door-to-door vaccination program, says some people are “concerned they would go to hell” for getting the jab.

Otherwise, reception in the community had been good Dr Gilbert says, and while some people resisted initially, conversations with medical experts allayed anxieties.

There has also been a lack of information and messaging to properly explain the vaccine, according to some locals, as well as accusations that long-time health workers known to the community had been frozen out of the highly bureaucratic process.

The opportunity to get vaccinated, at least with AstraZeneca, has been available since March this year – but it’s been a door-to-door jab effort that has driven rates up.

In nine days the Mater vaccination team has managed to give 230 people in Cherbourg their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

There are an estimated 250 people in the community yet to get the vaccine.

The consequences of a Covid-19 outbreak in an Aboriginal community, where many have chronic underlying health issues, would be dire.

With cases expected to spike in the state when interstate borders reopen on December 17, Cr Sandow wants local authorities to be given the power to prevent unvaccinated outsiders from coming in.

It’s a measure mayors of other Aboriginal communities in Queensland have called for.

But Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk signalled the option wasn’t on the table, as Queensland was “one state” and she had “always tried to unite Queenslanders”.

From December 17, when vaccine-specific health orders begin, unvaccinated Queenslanders won’t be allowed to go to the pub or visit highly-susceptible people in aged care but they’ll be allowed in to an Aboriginal community.

“At the end of the day we want to keep the community safe,” Cr Sandow says.

“We only need one case here and it can take out a few people.”

Old records from 1919 show the town’s doctor at the time, Dr Junk, couldn’t work out how the Spanish flu managed to seep into the Aboriginal community.

“This place would’ve been shut down tighter than anything,” Mr Law says.

“And yet, the flu ended up getting in.”

There’s an audio recording from that time made by two nurses which revealed their job was to meet up with another Aboriginal man each morning during the pandemic, with a horse and cart, and collect the dead.

An estimated 83 people of the town’s 600-strong population died during the Spanish flu pandemic — all buried in the mass grave tucked away in Cherbourg’s old cemetery behind the TAFE building.