I guess I don’t remember things the same. In my state, the most extreme restrictions (basically, everything is closed that isn’t remote or essential work) were lifted after a bit. I don’t recall ever being under the impression that restrictions would ever be completely lifted until the vaccine was rolled out. I recall at the time there being a lot of worry about how long that would take. I also don’t recall anything about vaccine passports, other than China doing it. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to the rhetoric surrounding that.

There were shortcuts taken in all countries to get the vaccines out. In the US, there is no FDA approved COVID vaccine. Every “approved” vaccine is actually under an emergency use authorization.