Given that for a long time before Covid, for .x1 and .x5 patches we generally haven't gotten a solid date until the maintenance announcement the friday before with possible special site adjustments the Thursday before hinting at it, I don't think all the Covid discussion is relevant. This is business as usual for the mid patches. Only on the main number patches do we get 10-14 days notice.

As for 5.41s date, today news post on Ishgard rankings stated that the ranking end on 22nd of January. Given that they'd receive absolute hell for having the third ranking period be longer or shorter than the previous two, 12th of January is a safe bet.

It's weird that they don't confirm it in that post but my guess is they have a policy on only revealing patch dates in news posts directly related to the release (like maintenance ones) or streams like the Live Letters.

I get that there might be frustration about lack of notice but games companies have been stung often from announcing things too soon and SE seem to like doing things in a set way. More notice would be nice for stuff like rankings and hopefully they can find a way in future (and hopefully not have a gruelling 10-day ranking period for anything after this).