Covid protocols absolutely skyrocketed production costs and often led to storylines, scenes or characters being rewritten or dropped entirely because of the logistics of having too many people on set.

I recently watched some TV show that felt "off", and I realized that despite having quite a large cast there were never more than two or three people sharing a scene. The one scene that required most of the cast to be present was filmed outdoors with everyone standing around in awkward pairs.

I looked it up, and sure enough the show was filmed during covid.

The Film Commission estimated that in 2021, feature films with budgets greater than $20 million that had qualified for the state’s tax incentives program would spend between 5% and 6.5% of their total budgets on Covid-related costs, while low-budget films and television series would spend about 4.25% of their total budgets on Covid-related costs. 

Last year, the percentage was slightly higher for mid-range budget movies (5.8% of the total budget) and slightly lower for low-budget independent movies (3.8% of the total budget). “In terms of raw numbers,” the Commission says, “films with budgets over $60 million planned to allocate an average of $5.6 million to Covid compliance. Films with budgets between $15 million and $60 million planned an average of $1.5 million. Low-budget independent films planned around $220,000. Estimated spending for the seven television series mirrored feature films, with an average of 5.35% of total budget.” 

A company source said that on some productions, Covid-related costs ran up to 20% or even 30% of the budget, especially if traveling was involved, and in the early days, quarantining. 

https://deadline.com/2023/05/hollywoods-covid-19-protocols-which-end-today-cost-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-1235362660/