They show a result, albeit weakly in favour of ivermectin, but that does not rise above significance.
Or other words… A null result.
Exactly! The chances of getting precisely zero are low. Biology always produce a wide range of results. It is unpredictable. If the drug has no effect, random effects from other, unknown sources are likely made the results slightly positive or slightly negative. There is no reason to think the researchers are being dishonest for reporting a marginally positive result.
It seems so sensible on the face of it that they should stop a pandemic in it's tracks, as long as everyone used them.
That's absurd. Masks are not magic. In 2021, doctors and nurses used FAR better masks than the throw away ones, and they put on full body plastic suits, with pressurized helmets. Despite this, hundreds of doctors and nurses were infected, and hundreds died. 115,000 died worldwide. Obviously, masks reduce infection, but they do not always prevent it.
Furthermore, from the earliest day of the pandemic, masks were widely used in Asia, but cases spread rapidly in Korea and elsewhere. Anyone could see that masks were not "stopping the pandemic in its tracks."
But we are learning a great deal from study after study brought on by COVID, and it appears that masks may not be so effective as we thought.
That is incorrect. There is no indication whatever that masks are less effective than experts estimated they would be. The effectiveness of masks -- and their limitations -- have been well understood for over a century. Doctors have been using them for over 150 years. All doctors and nurses know that despite their best efforts and most careful use of masks, they are sometimes infected by contagious patients.