Wasn't a lot of the authoritarian concern around COVID based on the idea that "this is just the beginning, today they require masks, tomorrow they'll require implanted tracking devices"?

I think history will look at the COVID years and see a remarkable and worldwide pandemic, and society made some rules to try to deal with it, some of the rules may have been a bit much, or poorly informed, but after a year or two things were back to normal.

I don't see COVID being more than a blip on any radar. If future historians analyze the history of authoritarianism, there will be lots of things more significant than the COVID years I think.