COVID was treated with more fear due to the impact of academic modelling, and in particular the models by Neil Ferguson's group at Imperial College. I remember the sequencing quite well here, the massive freakout and sudden interest in extreme lockdowns appeared immediately after Ferguson went to the press because his models predicted sky high casualty rates if lockdowns weren't implemented immediately.

In reality his models were full of bugs, stupid assumptions and were generally unvalidated garbage tier work that didn't match reality at all. A few other epidemiologists pointed that out at the time, but governments are completely undiscerning when it comes to "science" and the press love bad news, so they went with it. End results were wildly off what he predicted.