In the US this was not true. Authorities strongly asserted that the virus did not have "airborne" transmission properties, despite numerous people contracting it while locked in their cruise ship cabins.
I was successful in convincing an elderly friend that this advice was wrong and she needed to wear an N95 when inside grocery stores even if she sanitized her hands after every time she touched anything and even if she stayed 6 feet away from people. It took about 12 months for the mainstream narrative to start to say that vulnerable populations should wear N95 masks when indoors with the public.
My take is that they fucked up but in an understandable way (rather than some evil conspiracy).
I remain convinced that Trump was against masks because it would mess up his bronzer and ruin the illusion it's intended to convey.
And if we're going to talk about Fauci's noble lies in the interests of public health, we ought to say something about the loon with a dead worm in his brain who sincerely believes, promotes, and enforces all sorts of nonsense that is going to result in a lot of illness and death.