You don't need a ventilator if you don't get sick in the first place, masks are much faster to put into immediate production, and impacting the curve earlier is going to have a much bigger effect than later.
I mean make everything. But I have family members working in hospitals right now and they are asking me to search the internet and find masks for them. Not ideal.
Ventilators are needed for serious cases and cannot be produced as quickly as masks. While masks may or may not help, more ventilators will definitely help.
The reason health organizations outside of Asia are not recommending mask wearing by the general public is there are not enough to go around, so they are trying to stop the public from hoarding them when the masks are vital equipment needed by medical providers.
Wearing the masks also helps prevent infected persons (some of whom are asymptomatic with this coronavirus) from spreading it, if previous research on flu viruses is considered applicable. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/face-masks-flu/
“These results suggest an important role for aerosols in transmission of influenza virus and that surgical facemasks worn by infected persons are potentially an effective means of limiting the spread of influenza.”