I know it's hard to believe that the CDC et. al. would just blatantly lie to you. But consider that they were simultaneously saying that masks WOULD protect healthcare workers. Here's an example tweet where the surgeon general claims that masks do not protect regular people, but they do protect healthcare workers. This is obviously nonsensical, those two things can't both be true.

https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/12337257852839321...

Additionally, the surgeon general has repeated this claim on live television as recently as a week ago. There is no way he's that incompetent.

Healthcare workers are in all-day contact with COVID patients that have late stage symptoms (fluid in lungs) and they perform operations where fluids spray around.

Of course do not / do protect are simplifications as the effects are not binary. This is needed for communicating with the public, the meaning was "don't help much" vs "make a significant difference".

If the health authorities always used the precise and caveat-ridden language of medical journal papers in order to ensure each sentence is logically correct when interpreted literally, they wouldn't get any messages through.

The guidance about public usage of masks has changed in a lot of countries because the guidance changed from "no evidence that it protects the public from infection enough to make difference in epidemic spread" to "let's take even the small benefit of reducing spray from the potentially infected mask wearers". It's a sensible change when the mask shortages let up.

No need to fan the flames of lightly assuming malice from health authorities, it's a bad time for that.

Except he repeated the claims in long format many times. Here's an example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvKSy1bwT70

I agree with you that right now it's absolutely crucial that organizations like the CDC maintain credibility, which is what makes this such a huge problem. Me calling out the lie is not the problem. The lie is the problem.

I still don't see lies or malice. The guy correctly recounts that like other national health orgs, they changed their recommendation, and tells why they did so.

Don't be fooled by the way he dances around the key point we're all talking about. He is still claiming the mask does not protect the wearer. He claims masks only help stop you from spreading it if you are infected.