Taking any stance is a political decision. Organisations and people will happily go with their side's narrative, regardless of scientific accuracy. Most likel

Taking any stance is a political decision. Organisations and people will happily go with their side's narrative, regardless of scientific accuracy. Most likely, in this specific case, there was a political reason to save the face of the Chinese Communist party (who omitted information, so it's likely at fault here); someone probably got paid in some form, circulated fake news and the rest of the media / political machine just repeated their side's safe source. This is why you can't just "trust the experts" and that's why the scientific process is a continuous work in progress which needs multiple people thinking and debunking each other. Sure, the experts consensus is a safe default - certainly safer than believing random individuals saying the opposite on the internet - but experts can be wrong and conspiracy theories sometimes turn out to be true.