I've had Covid 5 times (I'm vaccinated, though I got the alpha variant before vaccines).

The first flu I got almost made me fail freshman year of high school. Fever and aches lasted for 5 days.

The first Covid I had was nearly as bad, but the worst it was over in 2-3 days compared to that flu strain that I got. Covid leftover symptoms dragged on for a few weeks. I also got the fatigue people were talking about, but I can't decouple those symptoms from the isolation, then I had a kid right after too.