>When I got Covid the active infection was noticeably spreading through my throat and sinuses rapidly (like over the course of half an hour). My immune system beat off the major infection before it got into my lungs and I just wound up with a month of "long" symptoms.

It depends on the variant that you caught. Some target the lower respiratory tract more while others target the upper respiratory tract more. One of the reasons why the early Omicron variants were not as dangerous as the Delta variant was that they targeted the upper respiratory tract more which meant that you were far less likely to end up with viral pneumonia or other issues with your lungs.