It seems to me that you're one of those not understanding COVID death rates, though.
Firstly, even though I doubt your number a bit, even a 1/200 chance of death is mighty high enough for most people to seek treatment for something.
Secondly, if you're already infected, the pill is probably less risky than those 1/200.
Thirdly, the chance of death isn't equal for everyone. A healthy young person might have a 10x reduced risk, while an older person with an existing condition a 10x increased risk. So at least for one of them the new medicine is clearly worth trying.
> A healthy young person might have a 10x reduced risk
The risk doubles every 7 years so it's going to be ~18x between generations, and much greater beyond that. Those who are old and have existing co-morbidities are really pushing the difference as severity of disease is strongly correlated with number and severity of co-morbidities.
Edit: ~18x, not ~30x. It's late here, I can't calculate 2 to the power of 4 without a calculator until I sleep, wake up, and have a strong coffee.
People think 0.5% is low, but e.g. JFK airport has about 500 takeoffs a day, if on average every day 2 or 3 planes that flew out of JFK crashed, how would they feel about air travel?
I think part of the problem is people see getting covid as something that will only happen to them once. So it is easy for them to think "well, if JFK had that many crashes, but I only had to fly once in my life, that's not so bad."
Realistically, re-infection is going to become more and more of a thing. Especially as it mutates.
GP stated that "the consequence of not taking it is death", which is demonstrably false, and specifically what I was referring to.
Also, the current mortality rate overall in the USA for Covid is less than 0.1% - in fact it's less than 0.02%. 46M confirmed cases, and 751k deaths (not all confirmed to be caused by COVID)...
Firstly, even though I doubt your number a bit, even a 1/200 chance of death is mighty high enough for most people to seek treatment for something.
Secondly, if you're already infected, the pill is probably less risky than those 1/200.
Thirdly, the chance of death isn't equal for everyone. A healthy young person might have a 10x reduced risk, while an older person with an existing condition a 10x increased risk. So at least for one of them the new medicine is clearly worth trying.