If the potential effect of a message is rather harmful, it's reasonable to hold the veracity of that message to a higher standard of scrutiny than if a message is benign.
This wasn't a good study, scientifically. Scrutiny was not applied before reporting on it, and now we have a harm on our hands. The fact that we're discussing it attests to that, since its a sideshow leeching attention away from the main topic of long covid's effects.
Agree that public messaging could have and should be a lot better on the topics you mentioned, but disagree that harm should not be at least a part of the calculus.
This question can be be applied to almost anything and only serves to pointlessly redirect discussion ("sealioning") - "don't write code with bugs" "oh? Who decides what is a bug and what is intended behaviour?" - "don't take candy from babies" "who decides at which age you turn from a baby into a toddler?"
This wasn't a good study, scientifically. Scrutiny was not applied before reporting on it, and now we have a harm on our hands. The fact that we're discussing it attests to that, since its a sideshow leeching attention away from the main topic of long covid's effects.
Agree that public messaging could have and should be a lot better on the topics you mentioned, but disagree that harm should not be at least a part of the calculus.