The "people will take stupid risks" if we give them protective measures was in full force, right down to Dr. Tam telling Canadians that we didn't need masks, that the public "wouldn't know how to use them correctly anyway" and just endanger ourselves even more, so save the masks for the medical profession.
By 02/02/2020 masks were no longer available in retail channels in the US. Not on Amazon, not in your local store, not at any price.
Retailers ware not competing with hospitals for mask allocations - they we simply cut out. There was even an article on Bloomberg which I can't find right now that talked about supply channels and why your Walgreens won't be stocking masks anytime soon.
The notion that we were told a noble white lie to help protect our health professionals was invented a few months later to whitewash the incredible incompetence of our health officials/administration at the time.
What I'm saying is - it looks like a bit of honesty and an encouragement for the general public to improvise face covering could have helped the USA and Canada despite the chronic lack of "real" PPE. The criminally negligent messaging around masks caused hesitation and doubt that was a gift to the covid deniers who to this day refer to that huge u-turn on masks.
[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/czechs-get-to-...
Apropos, when the similar effort by the "patriotic Chinese emigrants" here got reported in press, one common angle was to present it as a hostile act by the Chinese state and also a failure of Finnish state of not restricting the PPE sales.
edit. Ah, a part was that the operation was coordinated by an official in the Chinese embassy. (Paywalled link in Finnish https://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000007971030.html )
The experts decided to burn their own reputations for a short term benefit, and are paying the price now with vaccine hesitancy and growing ire towards experts.
The criminal part is downplaying airborne transmission risks so your "no masks" story doesn't fall apart.
At one point, ER Docs and Nurses were wearing goggles, face shields, double masking (n95 + surgical masks) and experimenting with microwaving the n95s for reuse and Dr. Tam was STILL saying there was no proof it was airborne.
Do you want to stand by that statement or withdraw it?
It's literally in the comment.
In the end they had to control the medical supply chain. It's a lot more work than lying to the public, but it actually works. Unfortunately lying lost the trust of the public and COVID became a highly political issue.
It's such a blatant, apologies for the hyperbole: "you are plebs and tax cattle, and not as important as these special people here".