Certainly, many rights need not be affected by a pandemic at all, and countries that have tried to use it as an excuse to crack down on those rights should be condemned. For example, the Indian government has threatened freedom of the press by trying to censor news coverage of the pandemic. [1]
On the other hand, as an opposite extreme, freedom of movement is something that in normal times is considered a right, but absolutely can and should be limited during a pandemic.
Other rights are somewhere in between. For example, in the U.S., the use of the Defense Production Act to compel ventilator production could be considered a violation of economic freedom (which has often been thought of as a right, though it's not a Constitutional right), and it wasn't strictly necessary. But in practice there wasn't too much controversy over it; most people seem to tolerate the idea of the government temporarily commandeering the economy in emergencies, especially for something as obviously beneficial as making ventilators. (Though there might have been more controversy if a Democratic president had done it, but that's getting into the political weeds…)
Certainly, many rights need not be affected by a pandemic at all, and countries that have tried to use it as an excuse to crack down on those rights should be condemned. For example, the Indian government has threatened freedom of the press by trying to censor news coverage of the pandemic. [1]
On the other hand, as an opposite extreme, freedom of movement is something that in normal times is considered a right, but absolutely can and should be limited during a pandemic.
Other rights are somewhere in between. For example, in the U.S., the use of the Defense Production Act to compel ventilator production could be considered a violation of economic freedom (which has often been thought of as a right, though it's not a Constitutional right), and it wasn't strictly necessary. But in practice there wasn't too much controversy over it; most people seem to tolerate the idea of the government temporarily commandeering the economy in emergencies, especially for something as obviously beneficial as making ventilators. (Though there might have been more controversy if a Democratic president had done it, but that's getting into the political weeds…)
[1] https://cpj.org/2020/03/indian-supreme-court-denies-governme...