We have swung hard from officials avoiding imposing measures out of fear they'll be blasted for imposing them if nothing happened to officials imposing overly aggressive and often arbitrary measures out of fear that they'll be blasted for not imposing them if things get worse.

Wrong. Banning people from buying stuff like baby seats or seeds because they aren't "essential" and people being ticketed for being somewhere in their car are restriction creep and not part of any original stay-at-home measures. https://twitter.com/MisterCommodity/status/1248982032551739392