I understand your caution. Paper plates are running rampant across Harris County. Seems like most I see are always expired (have been that way before covid times) and I always wonder why the police arent seeing these like I seem to.
You are free to drive with expired registration until April due to COVID, sadly
I say get rid of all paper plates. Me and my wife play a game called paper plate or not, we see shitbox vehicles and guess if they have a paper plate, 90% of the time we correct
It also makes me wonder why I'm paying my registration like some of chump, when no one else is? I may as well just fire up Microsoft Word and print myself off a fake paper plate like everyone else