Isnt this effectively what all governments are doing?

Paying people to stay home so that other people with essential roles can carry on with less chance of spreading covid?

No. That would be the case only if essential workers were using their government-issued permit to go to night clubs without mask nor physical distancing, and pretend to not spread germs because others are staying at home.

As far as I can tell the only problem with offsets is that it's difficult to account for. If you buy offsets for 1 ton of carbon, it's difficult to ensure that the offsets represent carbon that would actually be added to the atmosphere if not for that funding. Is your comment just extreme pessimism about the efficacy of the auditors or are you remarking that one can't offset their carbon (i.e., co2 isn't fungible)?

I don't think the analogy works; what would a coronavirus offset be?

Hrm, that's not a bad idea. Perhaps if we use the market to fix the pandemic. The Invisible Hand covering your mouth when you sneeze.