ANY severe viral infection can cause permanent lung damage, even just the flu:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...?dopt=Abstract


Coronavirus - in young healthy people - doesn’t seem to cause that a great deal more than any other respiratory virus.

It is now starting to become obvious that the whole ‘OMIGAWD, WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH RESPIRATORS!’ thing was overdone.


Too many people were put on too many respirators too early with disastrous results. A respirator is a potentially lethal device and demands specifically trained medical and nursing personnel to manage people effectively. Under NORMAL circumstances a relatively small cadre of physicians In each facility are specIfically credentialed for their use and generally only post op and ICU nurses attend these patients.

Some of what happened was akin to putting a 50 hr private pilot in charge of an A-10 and sending them out to strafe bad guys. Expecting Joe average doc to manage patients optimally on a ventilator was a recipe for disaster. Today they are much more reticent to do early intubation and ventilator use:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/...n-ventilators/