https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-govt-buy-10-mln-courses-pfizers-covid-19-pill-529-bln-2021-11-18/
Pfizer has their own pill the US signed a contract for. I don't remember the active ingredient but it's not anything new from what I remember. 89 effectiveness in reducing hospitalization or death, that is higher than some vaccines.
Refuse a $20 vaccine for a tenfold chance to give $500 to Big Pharma... can't wait for the usual suspects to bake a pretzel about this.
If they refuse the vaccine that's on them, but if it'll save someone's life, 500 USD is a small price to pay (or whatever it might cost).
And most of the anti-vaxxers are mostly concerned about long term effects that haven't been well studied. Only to someone that the vaccine wouldn't benefit too greatly, a healthy person, this serves as an alterative only in the event they get sick + severe infection. Most of the folks that need the vax are already vaxed.
Vaccine + pill + other therapeutics means the world should go back to normal and leave Covid in the past. I'm cautiously optimistic.