I'm fine with jobs requiring vaccination, and I'm fine with government jobs and public schools requiring vaccination, and even businesses (especially ones involving crowds of people, like conference/convention halls and cruise ships) requiring vaccination. It's basically saying, "You don't want to get vaccinated? Fine, then you don't get to participate in our society."
But a law introducing criminal penalties for being unvaxxed? No way.
People are stressed, people are scared, people are exhausted. Righteous anger makes all of that worse.
So, in addition to losing loved ones I think mandates do work. Putting it into law, like you suggest is harder, but giving companies green light for mandates is easier and does have some noticeable effect.
cool. but let us not stop there. there are so many more public health hazards that we can solve that way.