“In early 2020, Fauci and other public health officials advised against mask use by the general public, citing both doubts about efficacy and a need to preserve limited supplies for healthcare workers” [1]. That second part brings it close to a lie. (There was no need to advise against mask use.)
America fucked up thrice: the mask misinformation in March, talking down the lab-release hypothesis (which would have motivated right-wing nutters into being less selfish), and not regulating local jurisdictions who took specific measures (e.g. no public outdoor gatherings in San Francisco, or vaccine mandates in open-air venues in New York).
Otherwise, we did pretty well. And I’m sceptical someone willing to put their family and community at risk would see things differently if any of the above changed.
[1] https://case.hks.harvard.edu/a-noble-lie-dr-anthony-fauci-an...
Huge stretch to consider this intent to deceive. This is as much of a lie as imposing rations during wartime. And not even that much, since Fauci's statements were suggestions and not mandates. They were basically saying, "We're not yet sure if they work well, but we're looking into it. But for now, supplies are limited, so let's not deprive healthcare workers who actually need them."
No, they could have said that. In fact, they should have said that. Instead what they said was some convoluted statement actually saying something like there was no evidence for masks working (null hypothesis), worded such that most people not skilled in critical reading would interpret it as an indication that masks didn't work.
It was most certainly a black mark on public health officials, along with the various closures of open air venues - parks, beaches, etc. (of course not that these things justify any of the abject denialist craziness of the "other side")
But even in your framing, I think they could have simply not said anything for a few days to the general public while healthcare workers went and scooped up whatever was still floating around in the consumer inventory. Coming clean and saying we think this might help, but the supply is low and they're more important for healthcare workers would have built trust rather than creating another transparent move that undermined it.
I do get they were under significant pressure, especially with the anti-leadership above them causing unnecessary chaos for political gains. I just think if we're doing a postmortem here we should acknowledge that the lying was a mistake.
The bigger fuck up was having an anti-leader in the bully pulpit amplifying outlandish anti-society positions. The usual mainstream conservative right wing opinion would have been something like "wear a mask / stay home / etc to protect yourself and your own family". This would set normative societal behavior, even though some people would do otherwise for their own reasons (with one possible reason being a headstrong individualist desire to exercise freedom). But instead a large group of mainstream people, who would have otherwise been perfectly content following along with the system's recommendations, were basically goaded into denialism as mainstream pop culture. It's hard to look at this and conclude anything other that the occupier of said bully pulpit is either directly a foreign agent sowing division for division's sake, or at the very least demented in a social media bubble managed by foreign agents.
1: Unfortunately, that direction was a series of ridiculous overseas wars, but that's besides the point.
It wasn't, in part, because of how we reacted to 9/11. (Afghanistan was probably fine. But wtf with Iraq.)