During the pandemic I even used a transit exemption when I was continuing the journey by the ground transportation.

​​​​​There's a difference between transit for ticketing purposes and transit for immigration purposes. We're dealing with the latter here. Transit is whatever the country defines it to be and it can range from being on one ticket (rare) to simply leaving the country ASAP (also rare). In most countries it's defined as not leaving the transit area, sometimes also on the condition of departing within X hours of arrival.