Yeah, that's what you need to compare, and that's why just looking at those statistics in isolation doesn't lead to a definite conclusion. But now that we're comparing apples to apples, and see the apples are comparable, we need to move on from them to look at other factors. And like you said, the growth rate is one such huge factor. So, really, I find the growth rate to be a much more compelling argument for treating them differently than the death rate. Though even that isn't airtight: for example, if wearing a mask would practically guarantee you didn't get the virus, and the spread of infection was merely due to people not taking such precautions in social interactions, then that could change everything. And unfortunately I don't know what the actual effectiveness is, so I can't comment on that—though personally I'm skeptical they're as airtight as we'd hope (even skeptical about N95).

All of which is to say: there's a good case to be made, and I'm not even against it, but (a) on the one hand, it's not nearly as open-and-shut as just comparing the (mismatched) statistics in the original comment, and (b) conversely, when there are more compelling arguments, it's so much better to make those arguments instead of comparing apples and oranges.