I think that the reaction we've seen was inevitable. It's less about covid in particular and more that (and I don't know a diplomatic way to say it) there was a

I think that the reaction we've seen was inevitable. It's less about covid in particular and more that (and I don't know a diplomatic way to say it) there was a risk averse, authoritarian, nanny-state, "we need to save people from themselves" advocate group waiting in the wings that just needed their cue to for the balance of power to shift and their views to be prioritized. To be clear, I don't mean some coordinated cabal, I just mean that society's views have drifted that way, we haven't had anything bad happen for years, the significance of individual freedom has been forgotten, we're well into turning on ourselves anyway. And so now with a push, there is a new majority, and we're seeing politicians take advantage of strong views and fall in line to represent them, disregarding safeguards and norms that we previously had in place but were not updated to contemplate something like this. And now viewpoints that would have been intolerant and completely out of line with western democracy, and ridiculed as some mid 20th century authoritarianism are suddenly applauded all over social media.