It would have had worse short term political consequences because it would have been an unpopular decision. But it wouldn’t have reinforced the worldview of conspiracy theorists.

They screwed up a bunch of things during COVID, but not many really trustworthy organizations actually just straight-up lied. Having something concrete to point to can’t help.

I don't think it would have even been unpopular. Most people understand that the masks needed to go to first responders.

My fairly anodyne conspiracy theory is that the government actually just missed the ball completely — didn’t want to admit it was going to be a big deal, etc, so they gave the “masks not necessary” advice. Then as the narrative was developing it became less embarrassing to appear manipulative than wrong and so here we are.

If they really wanted to save PPE for the hospitals, they could have made some calls to Walmart, Home Depot, and friends to pull it from the shelves. If it were an attempt at manipulation it would have been executed more smoothly.

> If someone could produce even one document implying that this was discussed at all it would’ve been catastrophic.

Why? that sounds like a pretty reasonable measure to me. The government has every right to ask companies to limit supply or pull stock off shelves in a crisis. Hell, it could force them to if needed and bring back rationing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_States