The streaming special Post Covid introduced South Park’s 2021 post-pandemic future setting. Officially titled South Park: Post COVID, it premiered on Paramount+ on November 25, 2021, as the first of the streaming specials made under the series’ expanded deal.
The story jumps roughly 40 years into the future, when the COVID-19 pandemic is waning. The familiar boys are now adults: Stan Marsh works as an online whiskey consultant, Kyle Broflovski is a guidance counselor at South Park Elementary, and Eric Cartman has become a rabbi with a family. Kenny McCormick has become a scientist researching the origins of COVID-19.
The special turns the characters’ changed lives into a mystery involving Kenny’s research, a new COVID-19 variant, and an attempt to use time travel to alter the future. Its sequel, South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID, continues and revises that storyline.
The Pandemic Special and South ParQ Vaccination Special came earlier and focus on the pandemic period itself, but they do not introduce the later adult future setting. Joining the Panderverse was released later, in 2023.