It looked to me as if they were going to have ES come back for a brief stint to help expose Peter right as the pandemic hit, and if ES were not still struggling to recover, they would have brought her back. I'm part of that torch-and-pitchfork crowd demanding they get rid of the Peter character, so I'm a little anxious for them to bring her back....enough so that I would have accepted a recast for a brief "Hey, she's alive after all!" day or two. But they seem to have their hearts set on having ES back, so we are stuck with Peter for the time being (though I give them credit for keeping him way, way on the back burner). Show seems to have recognized that the way they shoe-horned him into the show was too...pushy? and thought that if they just stopped trying so hard to "make him happen" that people would slowly accept him. But Covid interrupted that, too, and now he looks even more expendable as we have two new-ish villains (Valentin and Cyrus) who are more believable and acceptable to the audience. It sounds cruel, but I hope Maxie miscarries that baby as part of his exit story, because it is even crueler to repeat the story of her being left to raise a baby as a young widow.
But about Emma Samms: none of that 1980s group (Robert, Anna, Mac, Holly, Luke, Laura, etc.) ever dies for real, so it's pretty good odds that she's out there. Until those actors die IRL I think the show will keep their characters alive, if for no other reason than nostalgia.