Canada

Most notes even before COVID were prewritten and just had your name and a generic "please excuse so and so due to illness" so in effect useless to convey any info other than you wasted two people's times rather than staying home getting better.

In most companies I've worked for the sick note requirement was 100% due to a few bad actors. We had to ask for one everytime because they wanted to avoid potential lawsuits if we only asked due to a pattern. 99% of people were doing the right thing and this policy just inconvenienced them. Part of the issue is employers making rules based on the 1% of bad faith situations. The amount of time management and HR spent running after doctors notes would have easily covered the cost of that 1% of shitty employees if notes weren't required.

Yea, the only time I ever asked someone to get a note was when I needed to get HR to do an ADA accommodation or FMLA or something for someone. As far as we were concerned otherwise an absence is an absence and there was a point system in place. As long as you stayed below the threshold you were fine.