COVID was not a disaster for this question.
If you withdraw money from a qualified retirement account to pay expenses related to certain qualifying disasters, that withdrawal is subject to special rules for either repaying the retirement account or paying tax on the funds. Federally declared disasters typically include major storms like hurricanes and tornado outbreaks, wildfires, earthquakes, and so on. Withdrawals due to expenses of COVID are not disasters for this rule, COVID withdrawals are covered under a different set of rules, and the law specifically excludes COVID from the "normal" disaster rules.
