Also events like Partygate in the UK really didn't help, people were already pretty done with the pandemic lifestyle after nearly two years of it on and off including fairly heavy-handed enforcement; the British government then lost all its practical moral authority to impose restrictions when it became clear the very people imposing them had been having massive boozy parties throughout the worst parts of the pandemic. That more than anything was the final nail in the coffin for things like mandatory masking and the 'rule of six' from what I remember.

I wish that public leaders realised just how much their personal moral fibre determines what people in general will and won't tolerate. The public trust they cheerfully destroy in minutes takes decades to rebuild, and I'm genuinely worried that if there's a pandemic with this still in the majority of people's memory they will go 'so you're going to put us under house arrest and have massive parties again? Why should we listen to you?' and it'll be a very difficult question to answer.