Thoughts on Covid-19

The best sources of data and analysis are from the Twitter feeds of Aaron Ginn and Alex Berenson. Aaron's early, excellent analysis of the Covid-19 outbreak, Evidence over Hysteria, was censored by Medium. This got an op-ed in the Wall St Journal . Read the article: the fact that it was censored says as much as the article itself. Alex Berenson worked as a reporter for the New York Times but left to pursue a successful career as a novelist. After becoming interested in Covid-19, he decided to write a book on it: Unreported Truths about Covid-19 and Lockdowns. Amazon censored the first installment until Elon Musk interceded - and it promptly became the #1 best selling book on the site.

EthicalSkeptic and Covid Tracking Project have great analysis and data.

Briefly:

The news on vaccines is nothing short of miraculous. Note that only seven new vaccines have been developed in the last 25 years (four by Merck!). The fastest a new vaccine has ever been brought to market is 4 years; the average time is 10 to 15 years. Vaccines intended for mass use by the general population have always required years of testing with very large test groups, because the side effect rate must be minuscule. Indeed, no Phase 3 clinical trials of a Covid-19 vaccine is due to end before October 2022 (see "Vaccines" below for links). Any vaccine released before the end of its Phase 3 trial is offered with incomplete data under an Emergency Use Authorization. And at least half of adults polled say they won't hurry to get a Covid-19 vaccine.
Mitigation measures like "social distancing" and mask-wearing have no effect on the virus's progress. See Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions
Masks don't work.
You can't get it from asymptomatic people. "Virus gonna virus."
Covid-19 is much less dangerous than influenza for people under age 70. 94% of people who die from Covid-19 have a serious comorbidity, most often Alzheimer's or obesity. Most Covid-19 deaths take place in long term care facilities, where annual mortality before Covid-19 was 32%.
Children overwhelmingly have asymptomatic or mild cases, and only rarely pass the disease to adults.
Testing is a total fiasco. Even the NY Times reported that as many as 90% of positive results are false. Most infections are asymptomatic. People who get tested do it because they're required to (hospital admissions, employees who face mandatory testing) or because they're stupid. The test has no clinical value outside a hospital: if you're sick, stay home until you're better and do your very best to stay away from elderly and infirm people. If you have trouble breathing call your doctor. You don't need a Covid-19 test to figure that out. But if you have the test and get a positive result, you're in the system, with attention from officialdom, mandatory quarantine, possible fines, and intrusive contact tracing.
The mere notion of contact tracing for this disease is moronic. The virus has been endemic for almost a year. Most infected people are asymptomatic. By the time a contact tracer gets your data, you've shed virus for days and have recovered. And why cooperate with a contact tracer? Just give them the names of your worst enemies.

There's no end of panic porn about Covid-19, and "Team Apocalpyse" (The Atlantic, CNN, New York Times, etc.) eagerly promotes every possible scary trope. For all the following actual observations, those outlets publish hysterical (and sometimes false) reports of the extremely rare counterexamples:

Covid-19 is not a leading factor in overall morbidity and mortality. For one example, in the past eight months in Santa Clara County, there have been 1901 Covid-19 deaths out of roughly 21,000 total deaths from all causes. More than half of those fatalities were in people 80 years of age or older. Nearly three-quarters of deaths were in people 70 and over. Just 5% were in people under 50. There have been 4 deaths in people under 30 in Santa Clara County out of more than 113,000 proven cases. The disease is less dangerous than influenza for non-obese people under 75.
Infection/recovery confers lasting immunity.
Sequelae like viral myocarditis are extremely rare, and no more common in Covid-19 than in influenza.
Incidence of Kawasaki disease in young children is no more common now than in past years, and no connection with Covid-19 has been shown.
Lockdowns and social distancing and economic disruption have huge negative effects which will be with us for decades. University Ave in Palo Alto has one empty storefront after another. More disturbing, see e.g. Famines related to the Covid-19 pandemic - "12,000 people per day could die from COVID-19 linked hunger"... It is "projected to be among the worst famines in human history." And then there are suicides, and abuse, and morbidity and mortality because people avoid the healthcare system.

Hospital	Beds
Kaiser Redwood City	149
Kaiser South SF	120
Mills Peninsula	301
Sequoia Hospital	208
Seton Medical Center	434
Seton Coastside	121
San Mateo Medical Center	448
TOTAL	1,763