Could be long-haul COVID symptoms. Despite being fully vaxxed in early 2021, I caught the Super Cooties in late 2021 as more than half the businesses and customers in my area stopped observing any precautions. Including Uber drivers and most city bus passengers. I had several medical appointments in 2021 (checkups for post-cancer treatment, physical therapy and evals for injuries from 2018 accident), and had to take the bus or Uber since I don't drive. Masks, including an N95, offer limited protection, especially since I have a beard.

No positive tests for COVID -- home quick tests or PCR tests at the pharmacy. But I had all the symptoms. And unlike other bouts with viruses that enter via the respiratory tract, this one hung on for nearly a year. That's very unusual. But also an indicator for both SARS viruses since 2004, in which the respiratory system is only the entry point. But the long term damage can range throughout the body, affecting the vascular and neuro systems, chronic inflammation, etc.

I never needed a visit to the ER or ICU, unlike some younger unvaxxed folks I know who declined the jabs. But I needed a couple of courses of oral Prednisone in autumn/early winter 2021 for chronic upper respiratory inflammation.

Full body images, especially of the chest, in 2022 revealed some lung scarring. Doc said it was impossible to say whether it was recent or due to childhood and adult bouts with pneumonia. Before the mid-2000s I had bronchitis and/or pneumonia almost every winter. And asthma. So I always had some limitations to my aerobic capacity.

The most persistent symptom was vertigo. That lasted long past the point where other symptoms cleared up. I hardly rode a bike outdoors at all from October 2021 through mid summer 2022. I switched to jogging, figuring if the vertigo caused me to lose my balance I wouldn't have far to fall. I fell once, on grass, no injuries.

So I got a little faster running, a little slower on the bike, but overall I'd say most of my decreasing fitness is age related. I'm 65 now and unless I can afford a course of medically supervised PEDs to stave off the effects of aging, it's all downhill from here.