We've said approximately as dangerous. It clearly is in a very similar ballpark. We don't have enough data right know to know if it's twice as dangerous for people under age 30, or half as dangerous.
(We do already know it's -way less dangerous- for people under age 18).
Ok, maybe this dispute is based on different definitions. I don't think 2X is "approximately", but I do agree that we don't have enough data right now to know the exact difference so I can't say for sure that COVID-19 is more than 2X as dangerous.
I also agree that COVID-19 does appear to be way less dangerous for the under 18 group. However practically none of the under 18 group is able to isolate themselves away from the 18 and over group so there is no real societal benefit to this distinction.
> I don't think 2X is "approximately", but I do agree that we don't have enough data right now to know the exact difference so I can't say for sure that COVID-19 is more than 2X as dangerous.
I think we have enough data to exclude more than 2x. The range of potential danger has influenza's risk right in the middle of it.
> I also agree that COVID-19 does appear to be way less dangerous for the under 18 group. However practically none of the under 18 group is able to isolate themselves away from the 18 and over group so there is no real societal benefit to this distinction.
There's a huge societal benefit to this distinction, because if children are at relatively low risk, and also do not seem to be index cases very often for how COVID-19 is spread to households, schools can reopen. This is different from most diseases, where schools are often a key mechanism of disease spread. e.g. see https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.26.20044826v...
(We do already know it's -way less dangerous- for people under age 18).