Except that most of the people who died "of COVID" were people with one foot already in the grave and the other on a banana peel. In other words, they had very little remaining life expectancy under normal circumstances. Thus what portion of them would still be alive today if COVID had never existed is rather questionable.
According to that study IVM reduced overall mortality by 12.5 x, and mortality due to covid by 7 x. In other words, IVM might prolong life--in general!!--so practically removing that foot from the grave.
Again, a reduction in overall mortality is the most important outcome you want to see: that says clearly the total effect of the intervention is positive. (The vaccines didn't reduce overall mortality in clinical trials - that should have been our first clue they were crap.)
I'd bet if they'd done a huge trial of vitamin D as a COVID treatment in Canada in the winter, they'd also have seen a reduction in overall mortality higher than the reduction in COVID mortality - given how vitamin D deficient most Canadians are. But, there again, the 'follow-the-science' crowd wasn't willing to DO any science!
In many non-RCT trials of new medications, the test drug group will show perhaps 15% higher efficacy than the non-medicated control group, and scientists will rightly say: "the placebo effect could explain a difference of this magnitude."
When the death rate in the group that didn't get ivermectin is 12 TIMES HIGHER that the treatment group, this is an order of magnitude higher than what could possibly be explained by either placebo effect or some unrecognized difference between the treatment and no-treatment groups.
Worst case scenario, ivermectin only cuts the death rate by 10 times rather than 12 times. A result THIS robust is clearly pointing to something very real and very powerful.
In fact, if there was user bias in this case it would go the other way: the IVM group might suspect they had higher protection so accept a higher risk of exposure. So if it were a random study, it might be like 14x or 15x
"most of those people would still be alive."
Except that most of the people who died "of COVID" were people with one foot already in the grave and the other on a banana peel. In other words, they had very little remaining life expectancy under normal circumstances. Thus what portion of them would still be alive today if COVID had never existed is rather questionable.
According to that study IVM reduced overall mortality by 12.5 x, and mortality due to covid by 7 x. In other words, IVM might prolong life--in general!!--so practically removing that foot from the grave.
Again, a reduction in overall mortality is the most important outcome you want to see: that says clearly the total effect of the intervention is positive. (The vaccines didn't reduce overall mortality in clinical trials - that should have been our first clue they were crap.)
I'd bet if they'd done a huge trial of vitamin D as a COVID treatment in Canada in the winter, they'd also have seen a reduction in overall mortality higher than the reduction in COVID mortality - given how vitamin D deficient most Canadians are. But, there again, the 'follow-the-science' crowd wasn't willing to DO any science!
True enough - but when/if they died of 'old age' no-one would be gung ho to lock everyone down over it!
The study doesn't meet the threshold of a randomized trial, but it's still better (much better!) than doing nothing because of ideological grounds.
In many non-RCT trials of new medications, the test drug group will show perhaps 15% higher efficacy than the non-medicated control group, and scientists will rightly say: "the placebo effect could explain a difference of this magnitude."
When the death rate in the group that didn't get ivermectin is 12 TIMES HIGHER that the treatment group, this is an order of magnitude higher than what could possibly be explained by either placebo effect or some unrecognized difference between the treatment and no-treatment groups.
Worst case scenario, ivermectin only cuts the death rate by 10 times rather than 12 times. A result THIS robust is clearly pointing to something very real and very powerful.
Good point!
In fact, if there was user bias in this case it would go the other way: the IVM group might suspect they had higher protection so accept a higher risk of exposure. So if it were a random study, it might be like 14x or 15x