How extraordinary your knee pain preceded your PMR diagnosis. I had a similar situation. I contracted a bad case of the covid in July 16 + months ago.
In the months following, I began to feel poorly to some extent. Shortly after I began to experience knee pain and bilateral shin pain. I was hyper focused on my knee believing that an inevitable knee replacement was at hand. A trip to A&E with the belief that this was possibly sepsis turned out negative. Unfortunately the doctors did not address the extremely high CRP level and sent me home. Night sweats, fevers, tachycardia, and malaise a second trip to A&E, I was admitted. I in fact had pseudo gout and was also diagnosed with PMR. My Rheumatologist is convinced that both are part of the PMR flare. So yes, more than likely your knee pain is part and partial of your diagnosis. PMR is a peculiar disease. I mention “Covid” and although I will not get into it on this forum, it is now believed that PMR is viral driven. I can attest to this. There are loads of peer reviewed articles online connecting the covid virus and possibly the vaccine, driving everything from a dysfunctional immune system and wreaking havoc, which manifest as a sundry of diseases to hijacking the skeletal structure and much much more. The research is coming out in droves. Long Covid clinics are cropping up all over and the wait time is 6 months to a year. This speaks for itself as to what this virus has done to human beings health. Clearly this forum speaks to the various manner in which PMR manifests in each of us outside of a “textbook” presentation. It is a bizarre malady indeed.