Did you read my comment at all?

"which was a smaller component of the motivation, sure, but got mostly conflated with the real argument. I think that is because it was much easier to explain to the public and to journalists."

They still lied, which was the original point. Even if they lied for what they believed to be good reasons.

No, they didn't. They reasonably believed masks to be useless (at least compared to the burden of having everyone wear masks).

They simplified (and arguably over-simplified) the public communication.

Insisting that they lied is uncharitable at best, and a hallmark of all sorts of conspiracy theories right now.