So in that sense, the response to COVID is similar - though on an accelerated time scale, because the epidemic is much worse.
Tobacco still causes 480K+ deaths a year in the US so saying covid is worse is a very strong claim.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...
I think the epidemic is worse in a few particular ways (though obviously not as bad in other ways as smoking, since I doubt COVID will keep causing 480k deaths a year). Ways in which it is worse:
1. It causes a spike of hospitalizations - this causes much less healthcare to be available in general. Smoking is already (regretably) factored in, I imagine, and doesn't cause sudden spikes.
2. COVID is generally not something you can protect yourself from - unlike smoking, which is to a much greater extent a personal choice.
3. Efforts to contain COVID are having a drastic effect on the economy in a way that smoking doesn't (both government-mandated and personal actions.)
2, Whole heartedly disagree with. Covid has specific health risk factors (Obesity, Diabetes etc) that long term people have a similar level of control over as smoking. People also have direct control over how much risk they want to take; there are vaccines, there are therapies, there are N95 Masks & no one is forcing you to go to a bar/club/sporting-event.
3. I'm not going to attribute to Covid the panic and over-reaction because of its novelty. Just like we don't attribute to the 9/11 terrorists the destabilization of the middle east and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
But people don't always control having diabetes. People don't control having cancer. People don't control other forms of immunocompromisation. People don't control being older.
3. I don't think it's an overreaction. You said in 2 that there are vaccines, therapies, masks. These things took a year to get to. If not for the actions in the first year, there'd be many more dead.