I think he's implying exactly that. I don't necessarily agree with it, but there's something to be said about possibly spiking infections driven by the "we're free!" effect of long term lockdowns followed to removal of any and all restrictions in less that a month. It felt like towing a jack-knifing trailer. One moment we were proceeding off the road, and the other we were careening into oncoming traffic.

obviously - in hindsight, zero covid, coordinated globally, would've shut this thing down in 4 weeks. This was the advice of the WHO, ignored by the UK when it mattered.