Good to ignore the PM noise IMO. Some say that's how you know you've made a good trade :-)
With regard to short covering, the rules are layered, and we would not see a report that a threshold flag has been raised for 2 weeks generally then there is some 30days for covering on naked shorts. Having said that, if a position moves against a short then they must add $$$ to their account to cover the position, or close the position cutting their losses.
FWIW, this is the sort of annoyance that only happens to the best trading companies. Remember what Cramer did to the FN*A? Now we know Ackman was behind that, and he's gone long if that tells ya anything ;-)