So one of my parents recently got COVID while on a trip to Canada, here's some things I learned from this:
1) The self tests were showing negative while he felt he was coming down with something (scratchy sore throat). It took a day or two after initial felt symptoms to actually test positive.
2) It took him about 5 days to recover in real terms. It took him a bit longer to stop "testing positive" though.
3) Nobody in the house (after he returned) caught the coof, despite it having an HVAC system that connects downstairs (ceiling vents) to upstairs (floor vents) rather clumsily.
4) Nobody in the car he took turns driving back for over 12 hours caught it either.
5) He is a high risk as he was a recent bypass patient as well as being overweight (though he has been dropping weight after the surgery). So far zero long term side effects.
6) He was vaccinated prior to this.
7) Symptoms were described as being like a respiratory infection with flu-like aches.
So fortunately, no harm done we're aware of from the virus.
The only curve-ball to what I expected was the self-test failure, or rather how it failed. I was expecting over-sensitive, turns out it was under sensitive at least initially.