Duh, even little ol' me realized that just reading the headline.
This just shows you how a simple statement from several weeks ago can be blown up enough to cause ridiculous policy decisions. Back then, there were concerns that very hot salt water would degrade the zirconium-clad control rods enough to seriously affect their ability to absorb neutrons, leading to “re-criticality”. That was just one of many questions posed about what to do. However, the idea that the reactors might start having uncontrollable nuclear reactions caught on with the press and others, and the popularity of that idea grew until it even affected Kan’s decisions. Pretty much anyone can see that cooling the cores with sea water is better than not cooling them at all.