How is an inconclusive study good news for anyone? JAMA and the study authors are making a classic “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” error.
There are other issues, such as whether the most accurate confidence interval (log-likelihood based, from the confidence profile) would make a difference, and whether even with the data in hand the study is “negative”. A Bayesian posterior probability that the HR < 1.0 even with a skeptical prior is likely to be large. A better person would be unwise to bet on the HR being >= 1.0.