Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this issue (dated July 2021) is the first time the WTS has explicitly acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic in the WT magazine.
Paragraph 2 of yesterday's study article, as well as the QFR at the end of the magazine about how internet dating sites are a bad idea (what a surprise they reached that conclusion ) specifically mention COVID-19 and how it is affecting JWs.
Of course they've done countless video segments on it and there are dozens if not hundreds of pages in excruciatingly fine detail regarding the micromanagement of conducting meetings by Zoom, but printed references in their "flagship" journal have been, IIRC, completely non-existent up until now.
They are of course, in general, dreadfully reactionary and slow to act, but this seemed even slower than usual, to wait nearly 1.5 years to "officially" acknowledge, in the official magazine, how the pandemic is affecting the lives of their adherents.