It's pretty clear from some of the comments that many of the people commenting on this thread do not, or did not, want to understand what I said in my original post. I said nothing at all to the effect that we should sacrifice old, vulnerable people.
To the contrary, I said that vulnerable people (regardless of age) should self isolate while allowing those who are least vulnerable carry on activities as usual. This way, the vast majority of people who are least at risk of serious complications from CV can go ahead with their jobs and lives.
If they catch CV, they will very likely have mild to no symptoms and be totally over it in 2 or 3 weeks. At that point, they will no longer be spreading the CV "germs" and won't be a danger to anyone... not even the more vulnerable people. In this way, the overwhelming majority of healthy people of the US will have been exposed to and recovered from the CV in a fairly short period of time (a couple of months) and won't be in danger of transmitting the disease to others.
However, the current plan that we are on of having nearly everyone (including the young and healthy) practicing social distancing is only going to guarantee that the risk of exposure to CV is going to drag on for month after month after month. This will greatly extend the time that the vulnerable will have to practice self isolation. And, of course, it is bringing considerable economic hardship to huge portions of our population.
Personally, the financial aspect is hardly affecting me at all and won't affect me much even if it goes on for years. I'll do just fine, but I hate to see it bankrupt millions and millions of the economically vulnerable in our country and weaken our country vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Printing money is not a viable long term substitute for production and economic activity.
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