His position in the public health authority means his goal is maximizing the long term public health, e.g. minimizing all cause death (and of course other bad outcomes).

That means he has to consider deaths 10 years from now due to lower healthcare spending from a recession created by the pandemic. He has to consider mental health effects of mitigations, and so on. So while he isn't an economist, he can never ignore the economy.

This holistic view I think has been missing from the discussion in other countries to some degree.