> the mortality rate is in the same ballpark

Even if that were true, mortality rate isn't alone the complete measure of a disease’s danger, among other reasons because death isn't the harm diseases do.

And it's not, at all, true. The extremely low of estimates of the infection fatality rate for COVID-19 are around the rate of the symptomatic case fatality rate of the seasonal flu, compare IFR to IFR (even with rosy estimates for COVID) or CFR to CFR and COVID-19 is much worse.