How bad you're affected would seem to be something useful. A minor annoyance that you eventually get over that brings peak physical performance down a notch for

How bad you're affected would seem to be something useful. A minor annoyance that you eventually get over that brings peak physical performance down a notch for a short time is a lot less interesting to the hundreds of millions of current and future covid sufferers than if it's debilitating requiring multiple weeks not working and being unable to function in basic ways. I feel at one time long-covid was considered to be debilitating, something similar that you can shrug off, not long-covid. The whole thing has become so fraught with hidden agenda that shifting definitions with an intent to mislead to score some points, garner interest & funding, serve political masters' interests, own the libs, bash those repub-anti-vaxxers, get more people to do "the right thing", or something else -- all seems so normal that we have to check every definition we thought we understood. Was I deceived (with the best possible motives, as always) before? Or is it now? Both? Neither is even still possible, but I have no confidence to assume it by default.