A smallpox pandemic would be orders of magnitude more deadly than COVID. COVID has a very low death rate and is comparable to the flu, whereas Smallpox kills 30% of people it infects and disfigures an even higher percentage. And my understanding is that it is just as contagious (may be wrong on this).
Read up on Operation Dark Winter (2001 era wargame of a US smallpox outbreak) for details on how this might play out. Spoiler alert - nothing good happens to humanity.
EDIT: I appear to have pissed off a lot of people by comparing COVID to the flu. I apologize, I simply meant that COVID is a lot closer to the flu than it is to smallpox. I am vaccinated and wear a mask everywhere, I am not trying to "downplay COVID" or whatever.
Read up on Operation Dark Winter (2001 era wargame of a US smallpox outbreak) for details on how this might play out. Spoiler alert - nothing good happens to humanity.
EDIT: I appear to have pissed off a lot of people by comparing COVID to the flu. I apologize, I simply meant that COVID is a lot closer to the flu than it is to smallpox. I am vaccinated and wear a mask everywhere, I am not trying to "downplay COVID" or whatever.