Remember the very first days of Covid, where they spoke about "flattening the curve"? Taking measures to try to limit the pace at which Covid spread through the population, so that we could get immunity by infection, but not at such a rate that it completely overwhelmed the system.
Then they realised that hundreds of thousands would die if they did that, and the cost was too great for them. So we waited for vaccines.
Now we're in a similar position again. Similar, but better. We have many people vaccinated and boosted. We have some people not vaccinated, or at least not fully. And we have some people who can't be vaccinated.
Omicron appears to spread faster (and more easily) and to be less harmful (although its long Covid effects are unknown). Because it's less harmful, it may be the perfect virus to let rip through the population and (kind of) immunise the unvaccinated against Covid and the vaccinated against Omicron. Unfortunately, because it spreads faster and more easily, those people who it does harm will be great in number in a short space of time, maybe again, just like the first time, at such a rate that it completely overwhelms the system.
My inclination is to let it rip, but I'm glad it's not my decision to make. The problem is that, by the time you realise you got it wrong (if you did), it will have spread so far so fast that a large pipeline of people will imminently suffer serious harm or die and there'll be nothing that can be done about it.
For myself, I'm going to be cautious leading up to Christmas, not because I'm concerned about death or serious harm to myself, but because I want to spend Christmas feeling well with the family, not lousy on my own. After Christmas, triple jabbed as I am, it will be business as usual ... and that's how I expect a lot of people are thinking, without needing their government to tell them.