I'm in two minds about this, but I don't the current approach the writers and producers have taken in not addressing t.
If Home and Away wants to be as realistic as possible, it would have made sense to acknowledge the existence of the pandemic without letting it dominate the show. As others have noted, Australia has avoided the brunt of the pandemic (barring Victoria to an extent) so daily life is largely normal.
In contrast, the saturation of COVID into our daily lives whether it be in the way it's impacted our lives directly or listening to the media every day, it's refreshing to