https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201214123611.htm

Reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the study also finds that people are more tolerant of authorities who abuse their power to enforce COVID-19 health restrictions than they are of other abuses for the sake of public health and safety.

"Efforts aimed at eliminating COVID-19 have become moralized to the extent that people tend to overlook the associated costs," said Fan Xuan Chen, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who conducted the study with Maja Graso, a senior lecturer at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand; and Tania Reynolds, a psychology professor at the University of New Mexico.