(Disclaimer : not all measure against covid are abusive, vaccine availability is a very good thing, blabla just talking about some govt hijacking the crisis to their profit, may or may not apply to your govt depending on your country)

Question 1 : Depend on the country but i would mostly say depend if they only defend effective measure or if they defend anything that give them power over you. For example curfew were proved counter-effective where i live (actually increased the cases because it forced people to all shop at the same time) but they still kept them for the longest time they could because young people in the street bother the old farts ruling.

Question 2 : It's a combo of multiple psychological tricks :
- unreasonable demand (if i ask you to let me take your car to a joyride for the weekend you will say no, if i then ask if i can at least borrow your lawnmover for a day you're way more likely to say yes)
-step-by-step compliance (if i tell you to get on the ground you will say no, if i tell you to sit on a bench, then ask you to sit down on the ground for a few minutes, then ask you to lay down, tadaa you've got down on the ground on your own. )
-previous compliance, (if you get up and i now ask you to get again on the ground, you're probably way more confortable with it and way more likely to do it willingly).

Of course these are no surefire, you can still say no at each step, but these are proven tricks that can and will work in most situations with most people