I've seen suggestions that a lot of these strange problems happen sporadically with other viruses like the flu too, and it's just more newsworthy when it happens with Covid-19.

This.

All the weirdness and horrors of "normal" diseases are now in the spotlight due to media attention on covid-19.

I'd hold off banking too heavily on anecdotal data. That's how everyone got all worked up about this reinfection story a few weeks ago.

With respect, the story of both governmental and private sector response to COVID has almost universally been not being worked up enough.

Surely the right response to that isn't to always be more worked up.

I think he means plan for the worst, hope for the best.

From what I can tell, the governor in my state (CA) took an appropriate level of actions at roughly the right time (after realizing that the federal government declined to be useful). We appear to be passing through the first big wave of deaths, and cautiously reopening slowly. It's unclear what additional actions would have changed things (in terms of reducing total # of deaths, or any suffering while sick).

Sure, but by getting yourself worked up you're not improving that situation any.

Have we looked closely for blood clotting problems and other odd symptoms with other respiratory system viruses? People get unexplained blood clots all the time. How do we know they weren't caused by a hidden viral infection?

I have a feeling that in 2120 people are going to look back at us as idiots for missing a lot of stuff that will seem obvious in retrospect.

Pretty sure they will have pictures of Florida beaches and the reopen protests beside pictures of the SF Spanish Flu reopening and think we didn’t learn a thing in 100 years.

A lot of the reports you're citing are just press-release-science being turned into breathless headlines.

Those problems are common with regular flu.

I had lots of complications the last year with a common flu. My joints and some internal organs became inflamed because of the immune response and I could not move and was very painful.

This year I got covid early from meeting a person coming from Shanghai. I thought it was a weak flu.

Now I give positive in antibodies test.