Eventually, the UK authorities will have to take a decision and choose which one they are going to save. The economy is very important at this point and its not the fault of the PM to take that stand eventually if the economy should collapse a lot of lives might be further lost that goes beyond the people that would be infected by COVID-19. The PM thoughts goes beyond health but the impact on every sector on the country should the lockdown happened again.
There are two reasons Johnson is taking steps to lean more towards the economy than on health. This is due to his overconfidence in the discovery of the vaccine and in fact, Johnson is a supporter of herd immunity. Not much different from Trump, who initially considered that a pandemic is a natural selection, in the end it is the strong who can survive. According to Johnson, freedom creates happiness which eventually becomes antibodies to fight the virus. Learning from China, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand, the keys to handling a pandemic are experience, leadership, management & technology.