I'm sure everyone is shocked that the government liked the powers that it gave itself under emergency measures and wants to keep those powers.

Like "temporary" taxes that never end...once you give a little bit of power you never get it back.

This particular instance isn't one of the most troubling examples of the "ratchet effect" in political economy(described by Peacock and Wiseman and then further illustrated by Higgs), but it's definitely an example of the pattern. For the uninitiated, virtually any crisis funding, bureaucratic apparatus, or set of emergency powers obtained by governments is all-but-guaranteed never to recede to pre-crisis levels.