> Another interesting question is, what is the economic impact of those high risk people not being able to leave their homes? What happens to the schools and workplaces where they normally serve?

Exactly. This is something I've pondered in thinking through some of these proposals - if one wanted to pursue these policies and actually protect high risk folks, that alone would likely have significant impacts.

E.g. KFF estimated that a quarter of workers are at high risk of severe illness with Covid - https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/almost-... - of course, some of these folks will be in jobs amenable to work from home. But, for the rest of them? That's a lot of the workforce either a) temporarily leaving the workforce (oh hello, economic consequences) or b) staying in, and accepting the increased risk from community spread (oh hello, more death).

> That is a rather coy statement. They don't even give us a clue how that could actually work.

Yep, lots of hand waving in that one. It's hard to take this declaration with any seriousness given the lack of substance.

My parents are 80, currently in good health, but definitely at high risk if they caught COVID. They're well-off and like to go out and spend money. Any kind of "focused protection" strategy means they have to stop going out and their spending will plummet. They're not alone; I believe "healthy affluent Baby Boomers" is actually a pretty large group of people in Western countries.

Fortunately we live in New Zealand so they can (and do) continue to go out and spend money without fear.

Restrictions on everyone seem to be the alternative (Madrid and Paris are restricting everyone again). That is going to be far worse for the economy.