The papers were not ready for publication.
Lee & Kim had been working on the material on and off since Kim was in graduate school in 1999 (LK-99 geddit?). Lee never makes tenure and is still stuck as an adjunct professor 19 years later. Kim goes off to work in battery materials…

News is out in Korea now. They’re standing by the claim there too.
Got dinged by Nature in 2020 which is maybe why they brought in a Western author.
No way to back out now. Either it replicates or just destroyed a bunch of reputations.