In the height of the pandemic when people were grasping desperately at anything that appeared to help (wiping down groceries, holding your breath to “prove” you

In the height of the pandemic when people were grasping desperately at anything that appeared to help (wiping down groceries, holding your breath to “prove” you didn’t have covid, drinking fish tank cleaner etc) I have to admit it makes sense to downplay something like smoking preventing Covid. Covid had/has a pretty low mortality rate and now there is an effective vaccine. It makes sense to not encourage people to take up a highly addictive habit with myriad lifelong health effects just to maybe prevent a disease that would likely have harmed them much less than smoking anyway.