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That was more a political and logistics issue than well reasoned health position. Any reasonable person knows that wearing a mask will help stop the spread of an airborne disease. It's why doctors, nurses, and surgeons wear them. Basic knowledge of either physics or biology will inform a person of this.

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When the CDC says "Don't wear a mask, it won't help you", that has the effect of degrading trust in the CDC. People who know that's BS won't trust the CDC in the future, and people who don't know that's BS will lose trust when the CDC flip-flops and says that maybe masks actually are helpful. I think that contributed to the politicization of mask wearing in the US.

The noble lie. Never works. Contributes to populism.

The upside is that it tells us who the morons and bad actors are. If a person repeats this "guidance", you immediately know they either have chosen not to think the situation through at all, or they are trying to push some agenda because their stated position makes no sense. Noise in a signal is a signal.

I still can't believe the amount of people that make the "like using a chain-link fence to stop mosquitos" analogy...

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