This is an intervention study, not a double-blind, placebo-controlled RCT. Patients knew they were getting ivermectin and the control group knew they weren't. With an effect that small (1.2% vs 2.0%, p=0.024) and only in >40 year-olds, bias/placebo effect seems very possibly confounding.
Yeah personally I find it more interesting as a study of the safety of relatively high doses of ivermectin.
yep, as soon as I got to that I stopped reading. There's no way you can convince anybody with studies like this.
25% reduction in death with a P value <0.05 is a pretty strong placebo effect, as is a 40% reduction in hospitalization