You are reading a lot into OP's question that I'm not seeing. Yes, COVID is anomalous, no it's not clear that for the purposes of modeling demand for an unidentified product that it makes sense to disregard it, adjust it, or perform so other adjustment. Depending on the what demand is being modeled COVID is still a factor.

You would do well to reread what they actually wrote and what I wrote. Nowhere did I say that they should predict the next pandemic (cool if they could, but not relevant here). Considering that COVID deaths appear to be climbing in parts of the world and we don't know where the OP is modeling for, there are a lot of unknowns to address before a meaningful answer can be arrived at.