How to use a conditional statement in a post loop but not count towards the "posts_per_page" if false

The simplest solution would be to query all posts using a -1 in place of the 12 in your ‘posts_per_page’ argument of your query. Then use a counter that ticks up if all of the above conditions equal true.

$args = array(
   'post_type'         => $post_slug,
   'posts_per_page'    => -1,
   'paged'             => 1,
   'post_status'       => 'publish',
);

 $topicsHub = new WP_Query($args);
 $post_counter = 0;

 <?php while ( $topicsHub->have_posts() ) : $topicsHub->the_post();
   // if the $post_counter variable gets above your limit, break from the loop
   if ($post_counter >= 12) { break; } 
           
   // conditional statements, breaks and continues...
   ?>
   <div class="u-12 u-6@sm u-4@md resource__main-tab--item">

      <?php get_template_part('partial/content', 'topics-card'); ?>

   </div>

<?php 
// increment $post_counter every time the loop gets this far (the above div will have printed)
$post_counter++;
endwhile; ?>

However, if you wanted to query only the first 12 posts that matched your conditions, take a look at advanced query parameters for WP_Query($args). There are tons of IFs, ORs, XORs, etc. that you can use inside of the $args variable. Just might get super messy and unreadable with the amount of logic you’re using in your while statement, so I’d recommend using the first method.

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