[msandford]

So on the one hand I completely agree with you on the necessity of having enough people to dodge the problem of random chance. "the law of large numbers" on Wikipedia is good.

On the other hand you have three different categories where the numbers from one group are smaller than the numbers from the other group. Could it all be random chance? Sure! But that does kind of hint that there might be something there.

[awb]

> But that does kind of hint that there might be something there.

The paper does not draw this conclusion. The data you're referencing is too small to be statistically significant.

> Findings: In this open-label randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with COVID-19 in Malaysia, a 5-day course of oral ivermectin administered during the first week of illness did not reduce the risk of developing severe disease compared with standard of care alone.

> Meaning: The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

> Results: Among 490 patients included in the primary analysis (mean [SD] age, 62.5 [8.7] years; 267 women [54.5%]), 52 of 241 patients (21.6%) in the ivermectin group and 43 of 249 patients (17.3%) in the control group progressed to severe disease (relative risk [RR], 1.25; 95% CI, 0.87-1.80; P = .25). For all prespecified secondary outcomes, there were no significant differences between groups.

> Conclusions and Relevance: In this randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, ivermectin treatment during early illness did not prevent progression to severe disease. The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

[msandford]

On the one hand, you've made a rebuttal, quoting the paper. That's good.

On the other hand, you've utterly failed to understand what I'm attempting to say. So that's less good.

> The data you're referencing is too small to be statistically significant.

I explicitly acknowledge this.

>> So on the one hand I completely agree with you on the necessity of having enough people to dodge the problem of random chance. "the law of large numbers" on Wikipedia is good.

That's the acknowledgement.

>> But that does kind of hint that there might be something there.

And here's where I'm saying "if you have these three metrics which are independently all non-significant but they're all trending in the same direction, there might be a 'there' there"

Maybe I didn't say it clearly enough to begin with. I'm not alleging that Ivermectin is COVID Jesus and we all just gotta believe in him in order to be saved. I'm just trying to point out that the data previously quoted should probably get a person's "huh, what's that about?" sense going.

[PragmaticPulp]

> Could it all be random chance? Sure! But that does kind of hint that there might be something there.

Right, which is why we have studies like this: Early studies showed similar "maybe there's something here" type results, which prompted more studies, which later showed that most likely there wasn't something there.

People also seem to have forgotten that all of the other COVID drug research has progressed significantly in the past two years. Drugs like Paxlovid have indisputably significant effects that leave no room for "maybes" like this and should be ramping up quickly. Even if we were to eventually run a study big enough to find some significant effects of Ivermectin, however small, it's already been left behind by other treatment advances.

For some reason Ivermectin sticks as a political talking point, though, so it continues to be debated to death while everyone in the medical research world has long since moved on to better things.

[s1artibartfast]

> which prompted more studies, which later showed that most likely there wasn't something there

Do you have a reference to such a study? I was not aware of any well controlled and appropriately sized studies showing a negative result, but I would be open to reading one.