What makes this state of emergency different to the state of emergency that happened some years ago? People say it is different, how?
The current SOE is for a different reason -- a pandemic. This current SOE is specifically geared towards curtailing movement of the public to curtail the spread of the virus unlike past SOEs which targeted the criminal element. A good example of this is exercising. You can't do that outside because that could lead to a spread of the virus. For past SOE exercising was not an issue.