I think no. It erodes trust in medical institutions, and now we reap what was sown.

The same thing was done in other countries, including mine (Finland). Result: covid deniers are still using the year-old statements from national health agency to downplay the significance of masks.

"Masks are useless; the officials themselves say so", they quote.

Big mistake not to be honest, even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

>even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

There's your issue. Saying masks are in short supply begs the question of why. Whether it's reasonable or not, no politician wants to defend their unpreparedness.

If that was their reason, then why did the change the recommendation while still in the middle of the shortage? Here's an article from months after the CDC started recommending masks, showing that widespread PPE shortages among healthcare workers were still common[1].

There seems to be a lot of post hoc rationalization for what appears to simply be a mistake. This is why accountability is so difficult. People decide ahead of time that certain organizations or individuals are right. If it looks like they made a mistake, then there must be some good reason that justifies their actions that we just don't see.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shorta...

Wasn’t the PPE shortage and the initial recommendation for the public to not wear masks both mostly about N95 masks? From what I remember, by the time CDC was recommending masks for the public it was all about the simple cloth masks, which I don’t think I ever saw in stores before the pandemic and presumably don’t compete much with N95 masks for medical professionals.

No, because ultimately the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

> the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

The wording here is good because we _should_ be skeptical towards any organization that is supposed to protect our citizenry, but unflinchingly lied to the entire population/world. Government has powers so that that it can control society. Why did the CDC need to lie and mislead people instead of finding a way to restrict the flow and supply of masks? The sad thing is that it would even be more forgivable if they were just completely incompetent and made a wildly incorrect guess. But they knowingly and deliberately lied in possibly the worst scenario to lie during.

What I’m saying is that this particular claim was not a lie, if it was true that the general public wearing masks would lead to a worse public health outcome due to a shortage of masks for medical workers.

Yes.