Yes, authoritarian police state. Just take Australia because they (unlike New Zealand) had an actual outbreak in process. New Zealand caught theirs early. Remember we were deep already into an outbreak in New York City and the Pacific Northwest before we even fully comprehended how much of a problem we had. First, Australia's starting outbreak was small and their biggest problem was a cruise ship which could have spun out of control but didn't....we were already deep into outbreaks on both coasts and had a few cruise ship problems including people returning from the Japan outbreak. Second, Australia hard shut their border and left several of its citizens caught overseas. Trump got flack for partially closing airtravel (which never fully closed) and for closing the US border (which remained opened for citizens and those with a right to cross). Remember the summer surge was largely a southern one and driven in part by the very bad outbreak in Mexico. Third, Australia, sometimes violently, suppressed both the BLM and antilockdown protests, going so far as to arrest a pregnant woman for even posting info about a protest on her FB page. Many US health experts said the BLM protests were important, and thereby shattered the lockdown consensus. Fourth, the Australia lockdowns were more than just dining/masks/outside....they restricted regional travel (something which the US never did and when Florida tried to blockade New York the press and Ds screamed murder). Fifth, the lockdown of businesses were draconian approaching Europe...you couldn't leave your homes except for very limited exceptions. Sixth, they imposed mandatory testing and quarantines on those with the virus. Seventh, the lockdowns were targeted and treated on a city-city, region to region basis until cases fell to zero in the redlined area, but those were hard shuts....no escaping to cabins for vacations, no outdoor dining either, no shops open, no leave to other areas even if grandma is dying or broke her hip and needs help. For you to say it was just dining/masks/outside is delusional and if you really believe that you really do have a scary control issue. Australia's lockdown is hard and draconian and if the question is whether those hard and draconian measures work I'd say absolutely.
As to Belarus one of my sons favorite youtube is Bald and Bankrupt who traveled the region during COVID. They even had their military parade and day of service. It's not enough to have an authoritarian state. You must take authoritarian measure+ catch the outbreak early + seal the borders hard shut so you don't keep reseeding the thing. Hawaii remember with its semi-authoritarian measures came pretty close to stopping COVID, but it didn't seal its borders completely. One airline conference later and they had their problem. So they got the worst of both worlds....they were able to partially slow COVID but at a great and ruinous economic costs and lost their opportunity to contain it.