Belarus is a poor quasi-dictatorship and Japan is a collectivistic society where people can follow basic rules and guidelines without melting down. The so called vaccine passports and their usage varied widely by province. BC was generally pretty chill compared to other provinces, as was Alberta, but for those living in the Atlantic provinces it was a proper "papers please" hell.Not all countries had Vaccine Passports though and countries like Belarus and Japan didn't lockdown.
The confusing part about it was that rules would differ depending on whether something was federally regulated (ferries, airplanes, etc), or provincially (buses, transit, hospitals).
Because of how this country is structured it's sometimes hard to talk about universal experiences between regions and provinces. If you want to talk about the border? Well the US was just as much a part of those restrictions.