I hope it is true, but I remain quite sceptical.

My bet is that it is a vaporware. That being said, my conclusion has nothing to do with their SailfishOS announcement - even with Android, it looks to me like another Ubuntu Edge. The first time I saw some info on this last year, my first thought was 'vaporware' - once I hear "liquid metal", "saphire glass", "e-ink thin as a paper you can write on" from some company that has never released any device and announces plans to release it in a unrealistic timeframe, it raises a flag.

The worst case scenario is that is is indeed a vaporware and Jolla falls for it, in a situation where they take any interest from a potential licenser as a life saver.

Some additional inconsistences were already mentioned by others:

• No news from Jolla - even if you blame Jolla for imperfect communication, they were always careful to synchronize press releases with their partners.
• Sensors and fingerprint reader support. Especially fingerprint authentication support is not a trivial thing and I doubt that Jolla is in a position where they would be able to implement it in two months. Plus if it is such a low level stuff, there should be some clues in Mer source code already (maybe they are, I haven't checked).
• If they were to go with Android initially and were able to sell it to customers as a privacy solition, what would be the point of ditching all effort on this and going with a system that is likely unknown to their current customers (pre-orders)?
• Even though I really enjoy using SailfishOS, I don't think it is currently on a level where it can get security certifications. I may be wrong, though, as there is a working solution for encrypted calls (from a third party, as mentioned on Twitter by its author, some company even sells Jolla phones equipped with this software as a encrypted phone solution). And it has been a year since Sailfish Secure was announced, so maybe things have changed.
• The press release cannot be found on their official website and they still list Android in the specs. You are preparing a phone for almost a year and you cannot wait with a press release to at least update your website?

I hope I am wrong, though.