Even after scientific papers are officially retracted, they often continue to be cited by other researchers, propagating potentially invalid findings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, platforms tracking retractions noted that 30 retracted papers were cited over 1,400 times, costing an estimated US$425,000 per article. A specific instance of this phenomenon involves the paper "Modeling the viral dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection," which continued to circulate and be referenced despite its initial retraction in July 2020.