I think you’re significantly over-estimating the ease of keeping them away from older people.
I agree being locked down would be tough. But that’s what we are asking EVERYONE to do right now. Why should the elderly or vulnerable not have to bear the burden of THEIR evaluation of the risks, by being quarantined, instead of subjecting the entire rest of the world to lockdowns just so they can have a better (sooner) path to normal for themselves? That just looks to me like a selfish imposition on everyone else.
I don’t understand what point you’re making about challenging people to lock themselves away for six months with only basic interactions. That’s the current situation we’re in. And yes it is especially bad for the young, who need socialization, education, play time, and even simply to see faces/emotions without a mask. We are sacrificing their well being and future to do what - give the elderly a faster path out of their own quarantine or a few more years towards the end of their life? It’s a bad trade off and is highly unjust towards the young.
Lastly, we should gauge a society based on how we treat people’s fundamental rights, especially in a difficult situation. A society that gives up those rights easily and advocates for coercive governmental controls is not a great society.
The lockdown helps because it protects people who don't care too, by relying on those who do _just a bit_.
Sadly, the option of segregating all at-risk people is not reasonably feasible.
As for those who don’t want to be locked in a room - sounds like they want to have it both ways - just the right amount of risk reduction and a sooner path to living their lives freely. But why is their desire for a normal life more important than others’ desire? Why should others have to give up their freedoms and endure an extended lockdown to enable them, instead of living their lives freely now?
I agree with you, people want to have it both ways and it's easy to get upset with them, but that's how the world is, and if the healthcare system gets overwhelmed because of people who don't care everyone else still suffers.
For polio, only 0.5 % of those who contracted polio had nervous system symptoms. Of this small minority that developed muscle weakness, about 2 to 5 percent of children and 15 to 30 percent of adults died.
Still, it was a frightening disease, until it was eradicated by vaccines (except where it wasn't: now that covid has brought the world's focus back to vaccines, we should do something about that, too.)
Great plan
For your plan to remotely work you would have to:
- totally isolate the people over an age limit that you want to keep out of society, assuming they don't are still working and/or have the money to stay isolated
- isolate with them any professional they need. Not only nurses and doctors, which I think you already won't find in numbers high enough to be useful, indeed in most states they are not even enough to cover normal hospitals functions in case of spikes, but also for example electricians/plumbers/gardeners/etc only for them, people who have to go shopping for them, etc
- isolate the whole family group of ALL these professional above
- create a sparse amount of covid hospitals with yet another group of medic professionals just for them so to avoid cross contamination in hospitals which is the main sanitary risk at the moment
You only need one person to badly wash their hands or forget to wipe down their deliveries for the whole care home to become a petri dish.