That's...interesting. When I had COVID symptoms, guess what? I had COVID. You know what I didn't get since the pandemic started? The flu, or cold that caused any symptoms. I'm sure me wearing a mask, and following procedures that helped prevent the spread of COVID had nothing to do with that. Wearing a mask even helped with my allergies. I used to get a wicked sinus infection a couple of times a year because of them. Haven't even had more than a random occasional sneeze outside of the week I had COVID otherwise once I started wearing a mask and people washing their hands and wiping stuff down.
Also...were we so lucky that "the masses" (nice generic boogeyman by the way) treated all of that like COVID, and forced vaccinations or no job, or forced people to stay the fuck home when they're spewing disease (on the flipside, if only jobs were actually fine with people taking off work because they're sick), or forced them to mask up when they're around other people because even though they might not be showing symptoms, they very well might still be spreading the disease.
Also, psst, you know that previous COVID infections actually fall under the blanket term of "cold", right?