The “No, X isn’t that bad” is an actual rhetorical technique designed to cause you to become desensitized to X still being bad. It’s sort of like a “straw dog” technique, although its focus is in distracting you from considering the pressing issues still associated with X. “Well, they were wrong about this particular straw dog about X, so any other issues brought up regarding X are probably wrong too.” Or that’s what they hope your subconscious gets trained to believe.

6.2% is very significant if persistent. I’m too old to think it is really really bad…I lived through the 70s in the US when it was double-digit.