[seesawtron]

I think in times of crisis (and in general to some extent), it is difficult and non-advantageous to aim SOLELY to be technically correct because not everyone is willing to pay attention to details. I agree that everything you have mentioned is technically correct but people need and look for simple guidelines and thumb rules from expert.

There has been a huge debate about the goal of statistical tests. Is their purpose to (i) find the truth (the effect you noticed in your experiment and the hypothesis you propose to explain it being true or not), or (ii) help an experimenter in making a decision what future experiments should they do to get closer to the truth.

I see this same debate re-occurring pandemic times. And I would argue that we must aim for the latter because in the end people want to know: Should I wear a mask or not? The former truth can be sought out in non-pandemic times with well-defined studies that are not under time pressure to churn out a publication.

WHO expertise failed to cut through this superficial chaos of "scientific expertise" to help people make that decision early on.

[chrchang523]

Note that, due to "researcher degrees of freedom", statistical tests are a lot more effective at stopping you from fooling yourself than they are at stopping you from fooling others. Preregistration helps with the latter problem, but there's ultimately no substitute for actually replicating the results.