In one the pandemic just comes in at the end. The book was pretty much done, so, tbh, it was just there and didn't really enhance the plot. In the second the pandemic also happens at the end, but it seemed like it was set up to do that as the suddenness of everything shutting down plays a role in how things end. The third was set after the pandemic, so it's mentioned periodically, like a mother worried that her young son is on his Switch too much as he got in that habit during lockdown. Or how it may have contributed to her teen daughter's problems socially. The other was a book of short stories where the pandemic is still on going during some of them. The same author of that book also had a novel about a more deadly, fictional pandemic, come out in 2022.
I know you said it was a boring time of nothing, but it wasn't. 2021 was probably the most pure fun year of my life since I was a child. Some of my friends took up an outdoor version of our hobby and as the weather was actually very good, we used to be outside doing that for pretty much whole days at a time, nearly every day of the week. In my social circle, a number of my friends went back to college in 21, 22 or 23. When I applied for my MA, I felt like a cliche of the post-Covid rush to go make a big life change and try to follow your secret dream. I have friends who moved back from abroad as a result, as being unable to visit home for so long had changed how willing they were to live apart from family.
Covid was a huge catalyst for people to change their lives. For both the good and bad. There was a thread on AIBU a few weeks ago from a woman that feels she only married her husband because they were living together when lockdown happened and the fact they couldn't go anywhere meant she didn't realise how different their lifestyles were. Unfortunately for a huge amount of people, especially women and children, it was a time when domestic abuse ramped up significantly. Some people lost loved ones, others developed long term health issues, while for many, it was the catalyst to become fit and healthy.
Many people lost their jobs or businesses while others changed jobs, started businesses, took up hobbies, changed their lifestyles, worked more from home, etc. The simple fact is, the pandemic changed things for significant amounts of people. Very few people went back to exactly their old lives because even if they didn't change much, others in their lives did. Leaving it out completely, in contemporary fiction, would make as much sense as a book written and set squarely in 1948 pretending that the war hadn't just happened.
I'd honestly say, that even if you don't end up putting any of it on the page, if you are creating characters, it's worth having a think about how the last few years may have impacted them. If you're writing about people in their 20s, did they finish college online? Move back in with their parents for a bit? People in their 30s, did it change their wedding plans? Was their child born when no-one, was allowed to visit? People in their 40s, do they worry sometimes that the pandemic damaged their kids? Was it a catalyst for a divorce? Was it the first time her husband punched her? Does a character in her 50s feel a tiny bit nostalgic for that extra time she got to have her kids back under her roof? Or does she think it stunted them a bit and wonder how to push them back into gear?
So while I'd say it's true that very few people want to read a book about someone in Jan/Feb 2020 starting to get worried that something big was coming, then the shock of being stuck at home come March. And all about clapping and banana bread and being desperate to get a test when they start to show symptoms and learning how to do zooms. It would be unrealistic to pretend that it had never happened and your characters lived from 2020-23 without any upheaval.