I know some countries told medical staff not to install these, on the basis that the medical staff would inevitably be in contact with a lot of people, but would (hopefully) be taking precautions.
My wife who works in the medical field and performs thirty minute to an hour long exams within a foot or two of a patient has been told that because she and the patient are both wearing surgical masks she doesn't have to self isolated if it's revealed the patient had COVID. I don't feel that's an actual representation of the reality, but instead a desire to minimize her downtime.
Surgical masks in a closed room... I'm skeptical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_degree#DDS_vs_DMD_degre...
That's what my dentist was wearing. :-) I'm still alive.
I think flatten the curve is for numer of confirmed cases, not daily confirmed. That means if the curve has flattened then it's 0 new case.
See the graph at https://flattenthecurve.co.uk/ for an example.
You could pursue an elimination strategy after flattening the curve, but generally the approach has been slow things down and keep them manageable until a vaccine is available.
Flattening the curve means keeping R low, whilst raising the overall mortality, because the time of the wave is artificially enlarged. You keep the virus alife, esp. by closing the schools. The area under the wave is much larger with the flattening the curve strategy, even after several months it's not over yet. A normal wave is over after max 2 months. Politicians rely on people who cannot do the simplest math.
But that's just a rather isolated niche. As far as the rest of society goes, I'm pretty ok with masks and basic distancing.
The clinic has not issued any further restrictions on the personal lives of staff.
Surgical mask makes far more sense.
However, if it bothers you that much, you can wear a surgical mask over the N95. That's the best of both worlds, and strictly better than either option alone.
(All of this assumes valved N95s. Unvalved ones are more effective in both directions than surgical masks)