Also, one situation was decidedly real, the other much less tangible. Ironically, the "authoritarianism" as you put it, is temporary for the real situation and seemingly permanent for the imagined.

I'm totally aware how my position may look hypocritical, I'm trying to explain how it looks from the inside.

I wouldn't trust the numbers from places like India or China, however, and for different reasons.

Having known someone with COVID, and having family members with medical backgrounds, my personal judgement is that it was justified. I understand people disagree, and my assumption is that those who reply flippantly are missing parts of the bigger picture - usually over the other side of the fault line separating individual freedoms and the sacrifices required for participation in a functioning society.

I also won't say that everything has been done perfectly, far from it. The messaging has been uneven - masks / no masks as an oft-cited example. But, it's an essentially unprecedented situation, and politics ain't used to moving all that fast so, you know, move fast and break things like FB says, woo!