Are there human studies linking COVID to chronic rhinosinusitis?

The short version: the evidence you retrieved does not answer whether COVID infection causes chronic rhinosinusitis, and it was never designed to.

The three studies here are about receptor expression in sinus tissue, not about whether infection triggers sinus disease. One study found that people with a specific subtype of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (non-eosinophilic CRSwNP) have higher ACE2 expression in their nasal tissue, which could make them more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 entry [1]. That is the opposite causal direction: pre-existing sinus inflammation might raise infection risk, not the other way around. The other two studies are about ACE2 expression in the lung and about autoimmune encephalitis after COVID [2, 3]. Neither measures sinus outcomes after infection.

No study in this set compared sinusitis rates in people with and without prior COVID infection. No study followed patients over time to see if new sinus disease developed after recovery. The most informative study design—vaccinated versus unvaccinated, with sinus outcomes tracked—was never run. The gap itself is the finding.

My call: the evidence does not support or refute a link between COVID infection and chronic rhinosinusitis. Confidence: not clear—the question has not been studied in the evidence you provided.