Ongoing incidence of COVID-19

Briefings from Her Majesty's Government focus on managing the reinfection rate so that the pandemic does not overwhelm the healthcare system. That rate remains not much below one but, over the course of this summer, they seem to be anticipating progressive relaxation of lockdown; perhaps the rate will remain above one half. Further, there is not likely to be a vaccine widely available for quite some time. In short, we seem to be charting a course that sees many new infections every day. They haven't said that, I wonder if I am reading between the lines wrongly? My guess is that we are accepting that rather more of the population will yet become infected this year but still a small fraction, far below what we may have countenanced when herd immunity seemed a reasonable goal.