Question 1: Is Covid-19 a punishment from God?
Short answer
No, we have no clear indication that it is.
Long answer
It is far too easy for many to respond to such questions with a knee-jerk reaction of "Absolutely not!". To many it is simply impossible to conceive of a God who punishes.
However, the Bible is full of examples where God punishes people in different ways, some that we would call "natural disasters".
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Noah and the Flood
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Moses and the 10 plagues of Egypt
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Israel's captivity in Babylon
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Jesus warnings of events prior to Judgement day.
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Armageddon and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse
It is clearly impossible to read the Bible and not realize that God sometimes punishes people and nations for a variety of reasons, most commonly because of breaking the Covenant with Him. To skip all such parts is dishonest and irresponsible.
With that said, we have no trustworthy indication that Covid-19 is a punishment from God, even if we consider that God does indeed punish people sometimes.
Thus, the answer must be "no".
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
(Matt. 24:7-8)
And then Jesus...
Jesus made a comment once about somthing that we can consider a natural disaster of sorts. A tower had fallen on 18 people who had died. People assumed that they had deserved to die for their sins and that God punished them thus. However, Jesus clarified that that wasnät the case and made a case for repentance and believing in Him.
Another time Jesus was confronted with a man who had been blind from birth and the notion that the reason for that was either his or, more likely, his parents sin. Again, Jesus clearly denounced such thinking and instead told the people that this had happened to the glory of God could be shown in the man's life.
It seems that, according to Jesus, natural diasters and our sin canät be connected automatically or easily. Neither does it seem to me that Jesus considered disasters of either flavor to be the worst thing that can happen. He seems to say that:
a) the world is broken and works poorly
b) God's glory and power can change and transform it.
c) Heavne and the hope and possibility of an eternity with God, is the goal
God is actively involved with saving the world back to wholeness. It started on the cross and continued out of the tomb and now through His church. One day it will be done.