You're disingenuously ignoring that those pushing for mask wearing destroyed their credibility by earlier claiming masks didn't work. It doesn't matter what the goals of their lies were, they were lies and the costs of loss of credibility is at the heart of all of this. Spin it all you want and try to win political points on your ideological enemies all you want, nothing can change the fact that lies were knowingly told and that's the seed that started the skepticism about masks. No amount of gaslighting and screaming that it didn't happen or that it was for everyone's own good will undo that damage. Denying this only harms the credibility of the cause even more.