>Everyone should still assume their phone number can be linked to their WhatsApp account.

But this has always been the case, the phone numbers are public, and phone numbers are the public key to whatsapp accounts.

Also you always could check a specific number to see if it is a whatsapp user. It is certainly an issue if a single actor can query 500 million users in a matter of minutes, and there seems to be some additional information per account like what device they are in. But these seem relatively minor.

we agree. Just pointing out to the parent commenter that in their scenario the risk hasn't fundamentally changed. Just before the vuln was fixed it was a bit easier.