As I understand it, the conventional public health argument seems to go that even if omicron is mild, more infections will result in more opportunities for people to become sick and die.

The fact that the conventional public health recommendation continues to be "get vaccinated" is troubling in light of the possibility that vaccines provide negative efficacy against omicron (and lack of evidence-- from what I can tell-- that they mitigate symptoms or even that the degree to which they would mitigate symptoms from this mildest variant-- especially among the low-risk-- would offset the potential to increase chances of infection).