COVID-19 is not a normal respiratory infection. It seems to prevent your RBCs from holding onto O2 and CO2 mimicking high altitude sickness. The disease acts like HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema). The damage and inflammation is coming from the blood's inability to properly perform gas exchange in the lungs. Other damage could actually be coming from ventilators with pressure set too high (lungs of patients are mechanically normal, atypical for ARDS). Patient oxygen stats are also weird, they're hypoxic, but not necessarily short of breath.
https://twitter.com/EricLeeMD/status/1245054768185303041?s=1...
https://twitter.com/cameronks/status/1243582723945566208?s=1...
https://www.cureus.com/articles/29004-acetazolamide-nifedipi...