To talk about COVID, or not?

I’ve been thinking lately about my book. It’s finished. I’ve edited it to death. I’m probably going to self-publish within the next year. The set-up involves a 17-year-old werewolf who leaves her Pack, and is pretending to be a human at a Scottish boarding school. I started writing it about eight years ago, but the world looks and feels like a very different place now. Currently, there is no mention of COVID, no face masks, no hand gel. On the one hand, this feel inauthentic—how can I write about teenagers, my main target audience, without addressing what they have gone through for the last couple of years? On the other, people use books as a form of escapism. They might not want to read about what they have been living, but rather yearn to escape into another world for a bit of relief (I know I do on occasions).

Then, of course, there is the question of how I would do it. Can werewolves and vampires and witches catch COVID? Can vampires get it if they drink from an infected human? What does this do to their mental health if, with every meal they have, there is a risk they will catch a deadly disease? Do they keep drinking or try and quit? These are intriguing questions that I’m itching to explore. It could dramatically change the dynamics of my characters’ personalities and my world-building, and take them to new, interesting places.

So, do I go back and edit again? Or publish it as it is, set before the pandemic, and set the next book either during or after the pandemic? Or, just leave it as it is. People want to escape, so let them escape. We get bombarded enough with COVID-related life, how about we leave the books we read as COVID-free zones?

Any thoughts?