Possible to add effect based on player being in a biome?

Would it be possible to add wither effect whenever a person is in a specific ( in this case, wasteland ) biome? Except when they are wearing certain armor (like a radiation suit). I know for a fact this is possible through functions, as I could check if in biome then if armor and if not armor and in biome apply effect, but I do not want a function running constantly (bad performance impact with a check like that running every single tick). So is there a way to do this through the biome.json itself? If not that's fine
Pls ping if you reply.