> Molnupiravir is indicated for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19.[1][5]
So after the risk of creating mutations in the Covid virus has been assessed and weighed against the chances of patients just outright dying due to not having this medicine available, the board full of medical professionals trained in this matter voted 13 to 10 that they thought the risk was acceptable.
OTOH, Molnupiravir works by: (quoting from Wikipedia again)
> [it] exerts its antiviral action through introduction of copying errors during viral RNA replication.
So it deliberately stops virus reproduction by introducing errors in RNA copying. The vast majority of time this just makes the virus nonfunctional, but it is technically not impossible that it creates a viable mutated strain. This mutated strain may or may not be worse than the original virus. It is not unsimilar to how `cat /dev/urandom | bash` just MIGHT start off with `rm -rf /` and delete everything, but usually it will just create a crash because the random bytes don't parse into a valid bash command.
That's very likely not even possible[1]; and, it not being realistic, would be a waste of time, effort, and money. There are lots of corona viruses that we have never stopped, and we live with via herd immunity, hygiene, and therapeutics[2].
[1] https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/05/covid-why-we-will-never...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html
> "The emergency use authorization was only narrowly approved (13-10) because of questions regarding efficacy and concerns that molnupiravir's mutagenic effects could create new variants that evade immunity and prolong the COVID-19 pandemic."
The quote above has its own citations in the Wikipedia page posted by GP.
It's unclear why that is relevant in this thread though.
Because creating mutations and prolonged pandemics are more profitable.