No.
We know that surgical masks aren't sufficient against Omicron; maybe 50% effective in practice. Do not burn credibility on stuff that isn't effective, because pretending something is effective when it isn't burns credibility fast and there's already a deficit. (Yes mask wearing has a statistical effect even with inadequate masks. Not likely enough, and not likely emotionally for individuals.)
There's three things that should be done:
- pass a law requiring airborne precautions or better in all interior spaces, with an enforcement arm at least the same kind of enforcement power the fire marshall or the folks who inspect restaurant kitchens have. If the inspection doesn't pass, the building isn't open. Do this on the tightest materially possibly timeline, no exceptions.
- pass a law requiring elastomeric respirators with P100 filters for all indoor gathers at any time a designated airborne pathogen is known to be circulating. Same law provides the things, and filters, and so on. (Works better than masks; costs less than masks. Existing industrial capacity. Many options. Put anti-price-gouging provisions in the law. Consider direct production.)
- pass a law requiring daily public communication of Rt, down to the health authority if you can but certainly regionally as well as provincially. The target is an Rt less than 0.5; if it goes over 0.5, all non-essential businesses are closed. If it goes over 0.8, those close for in-person anything, schools close, and so on. Do the communication about exponentials. Point out this is the spreadingest disease in human history, lasting immunity isn't currently possible, and the damage is cumulative. (and nigh-certainly permanent.) Rt is a real measurable thing and the lower we can keep it the faster the disease goes away. Communicate that, and keep communicating that.
This will require spending public money to get that information about the current actual Rt, but that's an appropriate use in the first place.
The Feds need to pass a law that explicitly says "public health is a matter of national defense; just as you do not get a religious exemption from a blackout, you do not get a religious exemption from public health measures" and ideally start prosecuting the organized anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers as bioterrorists. (Y'all do recognize that the money and push behind faith-based exceptions to the law are dominionists? They want the civil law not to apply to them because they believe, and they're very focused on it.)
Some border control is absolutely required. A great deal of funding for the health care system is required, long term; we need to produce more nurses, more doctors, and more everything. That's going to take a long time and it's a larger number than it would have been with better pandemic management.
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