It’s actually somewhere between 0.65% and 1%, but let’s take your 0.5%. Apply that to 330 million Americans. Get 1,650,000 deaths.
I’m not defending the lockdowns and the mask mandates. I’m 100% against those. The political response was totally botched. I’ve long been in favor of an approach closer to what Sweden did early on where businesses and individuals were told how best to protect people. Businesses were able to operate with some basic changes to reduce the risk of spread and people were able to largely go about their lives with small changes. The only big mistake made by Sweden (and they acknowledge this themselves) was failing to protect elderly long term care facilities.
A reasonable response to this virus was warranted. A total economic shutdown was not a reasonable response. But a response was absolutely needed. President Trump did it right: providing the states with everything they could possibly need to help keep people alive and safe while working on the endgamee against the virus (safe and effective vaccines).
even the grossly inflated official death toll is no where near 1,650,000. Covid was nothing more than a bad flu season used to fuel mass hysteria in an election year