"I would give up my civil liberties in a heartbeat to protect my family if someone would pay for the citizenship."

History advises that this is a risky point of view, one clearly which many/most of your fellow citizens disagree, either rationally or by their obvious disregard for the protocols put into place by their own governors or mayors.

You see, we have met the enemy with regard to COVID spread, and the enemy is us. The enemy is every person who believes that it is OK to go about their lives normally despite COVID, and those persons would be doing what they are doing regardless of who our political leaders are.

So, yes, the only way to insure that the spread is stopped is through authoritarian measures which, history shows, requires ceding power to the central government where history shows that once ceded, central government is loathe to give back.

It's an odd conundrum, because America, through World Wars and other conflicts, has generally agreed that freedom is worth dying for, which is the exact opposite of what you're now saying.