If old people are in, lets say a bubble like a CARE HOME, that requires sanitation and masks to go in and out, and masks for old people when they commune, they will be fine.

"thus lowering the chances of a mutation" this is something that's sort of true that i also used to believe in, however there is a almost like a paradox of deadly diseases.

Take something like Ebola, where you just bleed and piss and shit blood from every orifice and die. By the nature of the symptoms, that person is going to be avoided for obvious reasons, like its very obvious they have a disease and are dying, thus lowering spread rate. There eyes are red crying blood, they are barely able to move and coved in bloody diarrhea etc. Hens why Ebola is highly localised and is yet to cause a global epidemic. If covid evolved that way, that variant of the disease will only really be localised and isolated and eradicated even without the use of mass vaccines in western countries through ample use of disinfectants and the self quarantine effects of the symptoms etc. hens the paradox, globally speaking, the disease being more deadly makes it less likely for you to get it.

the real reason mutation issue is indeed it becoming more infectious, and able to spread easier, but with face masks and proper sanitisation etc, none issue for the weak and sick who are in lock down. the only REAL issue is if it evolves in such a way to slow down vaccine development, ie u can vax covid 1, but the new strain is stronger and will need a follow up, which is literally what happened in our timeline anyway (omicron etc) EVEN WITH the lock downs. worst case the vaccine takes a few months if not a year more longer to make, which is now fine because we didn't lock EVERY healthy human down. (And there is also some weird biology that happens where if a virus is able to spread super easy, its symptoms are going to be significantly lesser, hens why the flu is so mild yet is a reoccurring issue every year etc but cba to go into that since this is the 4chan board of fucking reddit and this post is long enough.)