Damien

Smallpox was a lot easier to deal with as it was easy to spot. There were no asymptomatic cases so when someone had it at which time they could descend on the area and vaccinate everyone around it. Smallpox also is not contagious during its incubation period, only when the symptoms develop, which again made it easier to stop its spread. You also had lifelong immunity after one vaccine. It also had no animal reservoir to live and/or mutate in outside of humans.

So they widely administered the vaccine and then over time swooped in where the vaccine escaped herd immunity to ring vaccinate everyone around it.

Smallpox remains the only disease we've eradicated through vaccination. It took decades and we were helped by a widely successful vaccine and that it was easy to spot. It's unfair to use that as a comparison point for a virus we've only had a year and a half to work on and that can spread without the host having symptoms.