I'll refer you back to
my posts in January. It was never solely about "saving them for health care workers." All of the key players including
Fauci, Azar, and Adams all articulated the concerns that mask may not offer the protection that people think they may be getting and contaminating themselves on top of the critical shortages of masks. Then you add to this how COVID-19 was presumed to be transmitted. As Fauci clearly articulated in March 2020, it was presumed to be primarily transmitted through symptomatic patients:
The extent of the asymptomatic pool of subjects with COVID-19 and their transmission risks was unknown. Turns out they were significant, but nobody had that data in March/April 2020.
So even despite the lack of efficacy of masking at that point in time, it made sense, given the shortages and risks, to take a risk-based approach and mask healthcare workers. They were clearly at the highest risk because of their continual exposure to potential patients with COVID-19 (and don't forget the major testing issues at the time, it was a royal pain in the butt to try to get results <24 hours). But to try to mask 300+ million Americans, for
no clear benefit,
no clear risk of daily exposure to a symptomatic COVID patients, with a healthcare system left unprepared by the administration (remember, in March 2020,
the Strategic National Stockpile had only 30 million surgical masks)?
It was a multifactorial problem. It wasn't just about the shortages. It was also about the evidence of how effective masks were and who was at risk for exposure to COVID-19. They took a risk based approach given the science at the time. Unfortunately, the data was incomplete to make the decision and if they had the data we had now, the outcome would have been different.
I thought they lied? Exactly what did they lie about? Their recommendation at the time was wrong because the science was incomplete, no doubt. But how was that lying?