Your original assertion was renters will move because the city is unsafe during COVID and that suburan areas are worth the price to commute trade-off.
Two suburban areas around Seattle are Snohomish and Pierce counties. Those "safer" suburbs are doing an objectively worse job of following Washington State's "Stay at Home" order [1]. Prior to COVID, hospitals were closing in rural and exurban areas, which reduced capacity during this pandemic [2]. Disregarding SAH/SIP orders and reduced capacity sounds dangerous, not safer and worth saving money.
As for cost, when enough housing capacity was built in Seattle then the rent stabilized. After short-term rentals are converted back into single-family homes or long-term leases then rent should continue to stabilize or decrease. When I last looked, increasing my commute from 25m to over 1h was not worth the savings in rent and would have required purchasing a car.
It's great you prefer the suburbs and there are absolutely people the 'burbs are better suited. Unless you have a valid reason to suggest people are going to move in-mass from cities to the burbs then I find "diminished city living" mistaken and comical.
[1] https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard... [2] https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/829753752/small-town-hospital...