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The one time I (was confirmed to have) got it I was pretty miserable with a few days of quite painful laryngitis that made swallowing difficult. It kinda sucked, wouldn't recommend
I did have a sore throat a couple of times, but nothing debilitating. The anosmia happened twice and honestly had a worse effect on my QOL as I was cooped up inside without the comfort of tasty food.
I presume you're probably a few years or a decade older than me, and it seems that it gets pretty bad once you're in your mid 30s, and concerning past the 50s.
Since we're sharing anecdotes here, I'll add two more to the pile: my wife's experience and my own. Let's just say that my wife and I are both mainstream Gen Xers, in relatively good health overall, and a bit closer to the concerning side of your time frame without being specific about my mumble decades on this ball of iron, rock, and water. In 2020, IIRC, both my wife and I had minor respiratory symptoms (drippy nose, scratchy throat) and while mine went away the next day, hers hung around and got a little worse so she got a telehealth appointment and was diagnosed with COVID based on no other information. She really didn't get much worse from my perspective but the fear was real even though it cleared up quickly, which is to say that she remembers that episode as being significantly worse for her symptom-wise than I do. IIRC the vaccine zapped her for maybe a day, whereas mine was again, minor respiratory symptoms and fatigue for <1 day.
Fast forward to 2023. My wife quickly develops cold symptoms. Now that we have quick and dirty home tests for COVID, she uses one, tests positive, has another telehealth appointment, and is advised by the doctor to get the good, behind-the-counter Sudafed and prescribed cough syrup. She does this and is (mostly) better in a couple of days. I quickly develop symptoms the next day, also test positive with the home kit, follow her same regimen, and do not see improvement. I think I discontinued in a day or two because the ephedrine in particular was messing me up and so I just went with regular OTC cold medicine. I have a telehealth appointment, in which the doctor pretty much tells me to keep doing what I'm doing, and spend a solid week with stubbornly persistent symptoms of low grade fever, head and sinus congestion, and low energy. I was not up to doing much of anything other than the bare minimum during that time. Finally, the congestion starts to break up and move, and I am mostly back to normal in another few days, although I don't feel 100% for another couple-few weeks. It was certainly the longest bout of illness I've had in my memory (10 days), but in the last two decades I've had two serious bouts of the flu that were more acute in their presentation, with the nastier one lasting for a week. So overall, yeah, a lot like coming down with the flu, though neither of us felt like our lives were in danger.
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