If you read the longer version of the UK's strategy that is not what they are doing... They are waiting until their numbers are high enough to justify lockdown and then lockdown as they know the economic shock is huge. So they wait until it is time, lockdown for 30 days, see if they can flatten the curve, then boot things back up.

The media picked up part of the story, but not the entire story. And, Boris played up one part to the detriment of the actual entire white paper.