> Hobbes identified this trap, and found an ingenious way out of it: redirect the fear to a third party. If I am less afraid of my neighbor than what the government will do to me if I kill my neighbor, then I won't kill my neighbor. And if the government is vastly stronger than individuals, it will fear neither my neighbor nor I, so doesn't need to constantly terrorize everyone going about their daily lives.

There are certain fundamental freedoms in a democracy, such as individuality, choice and movement. Democracies, of course, are weak to challenge those, as that is the point of a democracy to protect such fundamental freedoms.

However, this pandemic has made it so that some of those fundamental freedoms are now perceived as a serious threat. The virus spreads individually and thus to control the virus individuals must be controlled, by themselves or by the government.

Are we seeing constant terror in our daily lives because governments now fear the individual, their choices and their movements?

Is this why we see a reduction in democratic values? So governments can regain power to control the pandemic and thus inevitably also control individuals?

States of emergency were such temporary mechanisms used and still in use in some cases.