Lemme speak ma dear frends. I checked the official site and this episode was posted THIS year so i think this was inspired by the covid.
The manhua is inspired by the novel "beyond the outline" which was released online back in 2019, it was published in November 2020 as a solid book. So nope it's not inspired by covid, china Eastern province just have too many virus outbreaks for some reason but the government manage it secretly, covid is the only one after SARS which affected the whole world. (ʘᴗʘ)
Ta*gina nagulat ako sa muka ni yoongie hahah