I've been exposed to just about every major first-world variant so far with various symptom manifestations. G-strain, alpha, delta, BA1, 2, 4, and 5; each of them having it's own unique symptoms. The first two were so slight that anyone not knowing what they were dealing with would have considered them to be asymptomatic cases.

Alpha was interesting all on it's own, I remember breathing in and suddenly feeling like I snorted powdered, electric glass. 6 hours later on the dot I suddenly had the first sinus headache of my life, and then it quickly moved to nerve sensations creeping up towards my brain. The headache was so intense I just had to sit in my chair, close my eyes, and just take in the experience and wonder if this was it. After about 10 minutes, it all went away. No headache, no nerve sensation, just a lingering feeling like I just had a line of cocaine.

Delta was similar in that it had a very strong odor, like something you'd smell at a bakery but I couldn't place exactly what. Again, a stimulant effect but not as intense. It went the furthest with classic symptom expression, but only so far as a day of small patches of dry, infected throat tissue occasionally popping up and going away.

BA1 was quite different. It was already widespread in America by the time it was announced, I remember smelling it in the lobby of Wal-Mart around Thanksgiving. Instant headache and burning eyes. A little bit of psychosis, a scab in my nose, but nothing more. But for the next two months I could feel clots breaking loose in my veins and lost feeling in my second toe. Ohh yea, the outermost layer of skin on my hands started peeling off too. BA2 and it's various sub-lineages were when the headaches began, BA4 in particular. I couldn't think for a few days. BA5 gave me painless blisters on my arms for a month and a half.

Never had a "sore" throat, no coughs, no fever, just all the other strange manifestations. Most people would not have put two and two together because they've never been told these things were possible, let alone considered these as signs of having "had covid." To wit, my gf got quite angry when I pointed out that the scratchy throat she had never experienced before, the incessant coughing fits, and voice so hoarse she could barely speak were all characteristic of covid infection. Ohh your throat isn't sore like a cold? That's the analgesic effect of the spike protein. She's just in complete denial so I don't even talk about it anymore. Didn't even consider once that getting infected would be a possible consequence of choir practice, and I'm not even going to remind her that she's probably feeling like shiat right now because of practice a few days ago. People just can't handle this shiat for some reason, let alone the classic symptoms. It's always gotta be a cold, or the summer flu, or sudden-onset allergies, or just... nothing. I'm feeling just fine and this is completely normal, stop asking.

Then you tack on the post-viral downstream heart problems like TFA mentions, that's where the real fun begins. I know what it's like to exert a little too much and suddenly find yourself in a tachycardia feedback loop. Oxygen throughput isn't high enough, your heart pumps faster, throughput gets reduced even more, heart pumps even faster. Suddenly you hit a brick wall with a pulse rate of over 200 and every time it beats you hear gurgling sounds.

And that's to say nothing for the concomitant brain damage you might find yourself dealing with. Things like not being able to think or concentrate, stuttering and aphasia, or even remember basic things about yourself. Like, what did I do yesterday? Usually I don't know, most of my memories are always just slightly out of reach, it's all a barely-recognizable smear. And being tired all the time, nobody mentioned how great it is great living like a cat and sleeping for 16 hours a day. Depression and anxiety? Yea it's probably not a neurotransmitter imbalance because the slew of drugs do nothing. Turns out heightened anxiety is a neat little evolutionary defense mechanism, probably won't get eaten by leopards if you are always looking for leopards. If you had to live like this you might be a little depressed.

This whole ordeal has been a life-changing problem for 15, 20 years for me, and this new coronavirus can cause all of these same things and even more, as it has done so for a metric shiatload of people already. It is not a joke, it is not a cold, it is not a flu, and it is most assuredly not mild. It is some real-deal bad shiat that can completely fark your life up permanently. You do not want it, ever, under any circumstance, or at any dosage.

Ohh yea, I just remembered that the day my throat was scratchy from delta, my entire face was numb like I had just had dental work. Straight up anesthesia. Yea that's totally normal, colds do that all the time...

Telling my gf this made her even more angry. She obviously couldn't refute it, and might have even felt it herself, but using that as evidence was just too much to handle because it wasn't something that the news was talking about. "It's not covid!" she quietly yelled as loudly as she could.

And another thing I just remembered, I kept smelling a strange chemical smell from her in the days prior to this. It took a while to figure it out, but it smelled like an old topical antibiotic ointment that is no longer made. Very similar to Neosporin, except with more chemicals and less vaseline. She had no idea what I was talking about and hadn't used any of it. I was already aware of coronavirus being sensed as odors like this, but was certain when I began smelling it in my nose away from her and then my face went numb the next day.