Word choice. Government officials, primarily unelected, conspired to secure supplies for their agencies first, and we're willing to knowingly lie and politicize to do it.

Was it pragmatic? Sure. Morally right? Probably no, if ends don't justify means.

Doesn't mean the pragmatic answer also wasn't a conspriacy.

Apparently the ends don't ever justify the means according to some.

It's not necessarily about the ends never justifying the means; some of us just have arrived at the impression that the same means of deception and authoritarianism are being justified so often by a variety of ends that perhaps their proponents don't actually believe there is a terrible lot of justification needed for them.

I feel like you are straying from the actual topic at hand. Rationing n-95 masks = "deception and authoritarianism"? I see the deception. The rest of your sentence I don't understand at all.

That multiple government wanted to secure supplies is logical. That multiple governments decided to do so by lying about the effectiveness of the face masks is suspicious.

It reminds me of a time where multiple governments were really sure that Irak had WMDs.

That's not incompatible with it being a conspiracy, though. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.