Acknowledging local government for quarantine measures

I decided to elevate my comment to an answer.

When this is all over, and most of your readers will probably know multiple people who died during the crisis, this would not be a good [look].

This is a global crisis that is only just beginning. By the time the dust settles, millions may have died from the virus alone. It would be a rare reader who does not personally know someone affected. More will have died because of how overwhelmed the global healthcare system is.

Even more will be affected by the economic fallout.

Viral infections can have lifelong consequences, even if you live.

If you're in a medical field, many of your readers will be caregivers who were worked to the bone for months, and had to make impossible triage decisions.

For your readers, researchers are forced to halt research, often at great expense. Many studies cannot be paused for three months and picked up at the same place.

And you're proposing to put in your acknowledgements "gee I got so much done while quarantined!" This is offensive at best, and obscene at worst. We in universities are extremely lucky that our pay will most likely not be stopped, and we can just pick up and work from home. That is not happening for most of the nation.

Frankly, I would be ashamed to be your co-author, and if you were in my field, put you on blast across every channel I knew how. Do not do this.

To me, it would seem unusual and tongue-in-cheek to acknowledge a person or organization who did not make any conscious effort to assist you. Acknowledgements are typically used as a means of recognizing the effort of others and thanking them for their contribution. Your local government's quarantine may have incidentally benefited you, but no effort was put into helping you with your paper.

This would seem like thanking the local lottery for making you independently wealthy enough to pursue research, or thanking the local government for a parade that really got you inspired, or thanking Ikea for the comfortable bed you bought there - none of those things relate to your study or were specifically intended to benefit it. You might as well acknowledge the weather, as it is equally indifferent to your manuscript's success.

To add to the other answers, which already clarified the problem with your idea quite clearly, if you truly are grateful to the government and to your community for helping to protect you and other at-risk individuals, there are many ways to show your appreciation that would be more meaningful than a perfunctory acknowledgement in a paper, which frankly no one in the government will ever read, or care about if they did.

Specifically, it would be much more helpful to express your appreciation to the local health authorities on social media or by writing blog posts and newspaper letters/opinions, or to donate money to local charities that are helping your community deal with this crisis. You can also donate your time and skills to help, say, mentor local community college students who are struggling with learning difficult material through online instruction. Perhaps this may come at a small cost to your scientific productivity, but it would be a much more meaningful and genuine expression of gratitude and likely to be much better received.