> "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus"
I don't think typing "NOT" is a slight error in wording. The message was deliberate, and it wasn't just the US Surgeon General either. All the center/center-left media, which is what I read, was echoing the same message. Fox News and Trump telling lies is par for the course, but I don't consider that a license for everybody else to start telling lies as well.
The masks worn by people without the disease would be ineffective or even counterproductive if health care professionals were missing PPE as a result.
True, but "don't buy masks NOW because the health workers need them" is totally different than "don't buy masks because they are not effective for the general public and can actually be worse" - being either a terribly wrong idea (like the article defends) or outright lying to the public (if the message was told not because it was believed to be true, but as a roundabout way of being extra emphatic to avoid the public hoarding masks and causing PPE shortages for health workers).