I suspect there's a lot of individual variation too. COVID for me was exceptionally mild with the only annoyance being the total lost of smell for ~12 days. Ot

I suspect there's a lot of individual variation too. COVID for me was exceptionally mild with the only annoyance being the total lost of smell for ~12 days. Otherwise, the dry cough wasn't any worse than the one I get when my allergies are in full force. Some people are just going to get worse cases and others won't. That's going to impact personal risk assessment. My mother had an even milder case of COVID than I did (no cough), but RSV almost sent her to the hospital this past Thanksgiving. For all the fixation on COVID we tend to forget that there are other virus that can be lethal to certain demographics (e.g. advancing age).