Is the pandemic over or not?President Joe Biden sparked the debate when he declared it is, then Dr. Anthony Fauci quickly disputed the claim.“I think the truth is somewhere in between,” said TriHealth infectious disease expert Dr. Stephen Blatt. “I do think it’s time we learn to live with this virus.”Blatt said dealing with the pandemic and with the virus are two different things. “I think it’s going to be really hard to define when the pandemic ends because we’re going to be dealing with this virus forever,” Blatt said.“I think we’re moving in the right direction. I don’t think we’re there yet,” said the Health Collaborative’s Tiffany Mattingly.Right now, in this region, there are 177 people in local hospitals with COVID-19, 20 are in the ICU and six are on ventilators. That compares with the peak when there were 1,033 people in local hospitals with COVID-19, 196 in the ICU and 141 on ventilators.“Part of the question is, what does it mean that the pandemic is over? It doesn’t mean COVID has gone away," Mattingly said.

A local professor who studies misinformation about vaccines on social media is adding new insights into the concerns by President Biden that the myths are “costing lives.” “There are groups of individuals that are doing the work to try to create misinformation, propaganda for various reasons, even monetary reasons,” said Northern Kentucky University's Dr. Traian Marius Truta.Truta is a professor of computer science, and since 2018, has studied vaccine misinformation spread by social media. Truta said determining exactly how much of an impact misinformation has is hard to quantify.“Social media plays a huge role in spreading misinformation however, social media also plays an important role in eliminating misinformation,” Truta said.One myth that gained traction on social media was that the vaccine had a tracking device, another myth claimed that the vaccine made people magnetic. Truta said the most ridiculous claims are believed by fewer people.“There are some, but very few. I doubt there are very many that are not taking their vaccine because of those claims,” Truta said.Social media is only one part of the complex misinformation issue. Even if it is hard to measure, the impact is apparent to many doctors. “The medical community and the scientific communities are trying to get good scientific information out there but it’s a constant uphill battle when things are coming from all different sources that are untrue,” said TriHealth medical director for infectious diseases Dr. Stephen Blatt.Overdramatizing actual side effects is another form of misinformation and is sometimes very effective. Blatt said false claims that sound like they could be real are also hard to stop.“One of the ones that’s come up recently is that the COVID vaccine interferes with fertility in men in women. That’s not true. The vaccines are very safe, even in pregnant women and they don’t cause infertility and that’s important to know,” Blatt said.President Biden and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy are calling on social media platforms to do more to reign in misinformation about vaccines.“We know that health misinformation harms people’s health. It costs them their lives,” Murthy said.