That yellow triangle isn’t the Problems counter. It’s a warning that you turned Problems off. VS Code added this in 1.85—when Problems: Visibility is off, it shows a status-bar warning by design.

Hide just that icon (and keep Problems hidden):

Right-click the status bar → Manage Status Bar Items (or run “Preferences: Configure Status Bar Items”).

Uncheck the entry for Problems (visibility off) to hide that warning item. This per-item visibility is persisted.

If you use SSH/WSL/Dev Containers: open the remote window and do the same there—remote windows keep their own settings/profile.

If you actually want Problems decorations back (and thus no warning), just re-enable Problems: Visibility in Settings.