> I have no faith in "yes the law has technical pathological cases but obviously nobody would do that". I used to, but I've just seen enough cases of the letter of the law being twisted with complete disregard to the spirit. E.g. practically any law to do with terrorism

I actually count this as the primary positive outcome of COVID.

So many people woke up to the reality of state power during that period. No more "this couldn't possibly happen here" or "they'd never!".

And even more after COVID, once the propaganda relented and the veil dropped even further. You'd have to be really obtuse (or otherwise invested) to not get the memo by now.

The pool of people who got a taste of the oppressive medicine has extended from "fringe" / "criminal" to wide swathes of "normal", middle class population. A costly lesson for sure, but extremely valuable.