It's a fair question OP. While my perspective here on GA isn't popular, I'll tell you what you'll likely hear nowhere else for your own consideration. This is going to take some lengthy 'splainin because it's not a simple answer unfortunately.

The following are just all my rough estimates based on people I know and have talked with as well as hearing hundreds of other anecdotal stories over the years. Firstly, regarding the entire population of people who said they've "had Covid", understand that perhaps 10% of those people merely tested positive but otherwise had no symptoms. Another 20-30%-ish odd percent simply had colds or flus and these are the people that said they couldn't really "tell the difference". So this encompasses roughly 30-40% of the population of people who think they "had it" in my estimation.

On the other end of the spectrum are the people who had multiple co-morbidities and were frequently sick with any number of ailments - cancers, cardio-pulmonary issues, kidney/liver related issues as well as recurring lower respiratory dis-eases (e.g. bronchitis, pneumonia, bad coughs, etc.) where it was all but impossible to distinguish between their ongoing symptoms from the so-called effects of "Covid". I'd estimate that this group represents perhaps another 10-20% of the so-called "cases".

That leaves us with the middle group, like yourself, that felt they had a unique dis-ease unlike anything they'd had before. My experience is that this group represents roughly half of all people I've talked to or consulted with which made this such a perplexing phenomenon.

In my extended family, 4 out of 20 fall into this 50% category. And even more interestingly, 2 of the 20 felt like they came down with "Covid-like symptoms" in the fall of 2019, many months before all the hype started. I found this particularly illuminating. Both reported essentially being knocked over with little or no energy, unable to do anything but rest, with almost no appetite for nearly a week. Both also reported no real fever, just general body aches and malaise like they'd never experienced before. And it's also noteworthy that 10 of these 20 were children and none of them have had Covid, despite at least one of their parents having it. In one case, both parents at roughly the same time.

It's also worth noting that the ORIGINAL Covid symptoms reported by the media for the majority of 2020 were these five; dry cough, hypoxia, poor appetite, energy drain and general malaise. Lack of a sense of taste/smell did not start to become a symptom until 2021 as I recall - at least not widespread. And interestingly, it was the supposed hypoxia symptom that prompted the widespread use of the ventilators in the first 6 months of 2020.

After the exposure of the 80-90% fatality rate of the people put on ventilators, suddenly the hypoxia symptoms stopped being mentioned if you recall. Even though this was all the rage in the beginning and essentially the metric the healthcare establishment was using to distinguish Covid from flus and other respiratory dis-eases presenting with similar symptoms. If you can recall back to that time you'll note a correlation between the period of time the PCR tests became widely distributed and the dropping away of the hypoxia symptom. An interesting "coincidence" IMHO.

Out of my 4 family members that believe they "had Covid", all got sick in 2021 and only one of the four said they completely lost their sense of taste/smell and one said they sort of lost it during the height of their nasal/sinus congestion which is common with flus and respiratory ailments. So kind of 50/50 in my direct experience with family. But really only one said they lost their sense of taste/smell while otherwise having clear nasal/sinus passages.

Further, of all the people I've talked with who claimed they had Covid, no two people had identical, or frankly even similar symptoms other than the general lack of energy and poor appetite (feeling sick). I know several people who thought they had it for only a day or two at most, while others who claim it lasted for a month or two, and everything in between. And out of this group, the more recent they claim to have had Covid, the more likely they were to report loss of taste/smell (2022/2023 cases).

With all of that as background, I'll next add that I did a massive amount of research and investigation into the existence of so called boogeyman-viruses beginning in 2020 to date. By early 2021 I became fully convinced that not only was there no proof of any SARS-COV2 "coronavirus", but in fact there isn't even a sliver of proof that any boogeyman-virus of any kind has ever been proven to exist. The entire germ theory paradigm is a lie from beginning to end.

So next we have the "bioweapon" question. While certainly viable as a possibility, this is a situation that's impossible to prove or disprove in my opinion. From a purely scientific standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense that people and families that spend a great deal of time together could have only one or some of the family members get sick while others didn't.

If the bioweapon idea was viable, we should see large groups of people all within the same vicinity, or exposed to the same water/air/food supply getting sick all around the same time - presumably whenever the bioweapon was deployed, be it family members sharing the same home/water/food/air and/or co-workers of schoolmates spending 6-8 hours a day together.

That family members would come down with Covid months and even years apart makes no sense in this context, and yet this was more the norm than the exception for people I've talked with. In only three instances out of many dozens I'm aware of, did both the husband and wife have it at or around the same time. And I should further add, I'm aware of only 2 children under the age of 18 who ever "got Covid", as opposed to dozens of adults I know.

All of these epidemiological observations combined with the fact that nobody has even suggested any actual causal chemical/agent that could trigger the range of Covid symptoms leads me to conclude that this is not the answer either. And besides, a bioweapon implies a "poisoning" event in my estimation as well, so the effects would be immediate and unmistakable, much like a large group food poisoning event.

But I do agree there was definitely a "new dis-ease" for roughly half the population. So if it isn't a virus nor a bioweapon, what could it be?

My hypothesis for risk factors is potentially any one of the following alone but more than likely a combination of two or more that make somebody more susceptible than others to coming down with this thing we call "Covid".

At the top of that list are people who are generally unhealthy as a whole, sick with one or more ailments that they cannot shake off. Second on the list are people who lead overactive, stressful, always-on-the-go lives with little or no downtime on their schedules - hyper-active from dusk til dawn. Third on the list are people who do not get an adequate amount of good REM sleep - 6-8 hours on the regular. Fourth on my list are people who do not get outdoors and spend quality time in nature on a regular basis. And fifth on the list are people who are roughly +20% overweight/obese and tend to get very little quality exercise.

In a nutshell, people whose body/mind/soul are overworked/overtaxed/overstimulated, either by their schedules or their lack of attention to the health of their overall state of being.

These are what I call the primary "Covid risk factors". In a nutshell, people who are "out of rhythm" with the natural order of life for any number of reasons - namely a balanced lifestyle that includes work, play, normal exercise coupled with adequate rest. And it's worth noting that the times we are in demand greater periods of rest I might add.

In combination with the above risk factors are two additional factors that can trigger "Covid". The first is a deep-seated, repressed trauma that has been buried for many years that needs to be released. And the second is a heightened state of fear/worry/concern over "catching Covid" and/or about other things going on in their lives.

In my experience and based on my observations, those least likely to "get Covid" tend to be those who are more at ease, more reposeful, more relaxed in general. As an example, I know of only 2 friends who said they "got Covid" who have a regular meditation practice. One in particular frequently feels anxious and overly stressed about any number of things in her life, despite her saying she sticks to her regular meditation schedule. I can think of at least two dozen regular meditators who never got Covid as far as I'm aware. I mention this simply to point out that there's no "one thing alone" that can guarantee someone won't get it, but this is the one thing I recommend above all else. Secondarily would be ensuring a quality night of sleep.

So what is "Covid"? I'm more convinced then ever that this dis-ease is the result of an energetic shift taking place in all of humanity. In Q speak, you could call it a shift "from dark to light". The "dark" is being eradicated to make room for greater amounts of "light" from here on out. Further, this process comes in "waves" if you will. You can think of this process as literal ocean waves of light being infused onto the planet in regular cycles - some waves bigger than others.

These light infusions are the reason and cause for the "Great Awakening" that is undoubtedly underway as humanity has been plunged in darkness for many centuries now.

When said darkness becomes "exposed" to the light, it is then "released", having no true existence in reality, but rather existing only as a shadow in the absence of light.

And it is this releasing of the darkness process that can be more gracefully handled by the body when there are ample periods of rest/relaxation/repose in one's schedule, in combination with healthy, normal REM sleep. It is in these periods that the releasing of darkness is able to occur without "sickness" happening.

And finally, as to the loss of taste and smell symptom, I would suggest that the hardest work our body does each day is digesting food. It requires the greatest amount of energy expenditure for most people, excluding robust exercise of course. Thus, curtailment of the smell/taste sense causes the individual to want to eat less, thus not taxing your energy resources enabling this release of darkness.

Whew, that's a lot to explain! It's a heckuva lot easier to just pin it all on a non-existent boogeyman-viruses or ambiguous bioweapons...I'll give you that!

So in sum, I agree "Covid" is indeed a new dis-ease experience for humanity and roughly half the population has likely come down with it to date. There's no denying it and it's unreasonable to conclude that it was really "just a bad flu" as the symptoms simply don't line up. But I will say that the flu is similar in the sense that it is a "purging event" of sorts, but not to the degree or depth that Covid is going.
So in that sense, they are alike; Covid being more of an "energetic/emotional purge" and influenza being a more routine physical/material purge of sorts.

And this makes a lot of sense when you think about how flus typically fall in the 24/48/72-hour timeframe. I've never heard of anybody who had "the flu" for longer than 4 or 5 days frankly. While for some people, Covid lasted for a month or longer, even beyond a year for some people in extreme cases (long Covid).

In a nutshell, I believe Covid is really a "light upgrade" that is most gracefully handled by those living a balanced lifestyle which revolves around a natural daily rhythm.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on my hypothesis. I'd say less than 5% I explain it to agree with me so no hard feelings. :)