"Then why didn't they say so instead of lying to the public?" ? They quite clearly told us that they were prioritizing medical workers. Read the WHO's guideli

"Then why didn't they say so instead of lying to the public?" ? They quite clearly told us that they were prioritizing medical workers. Read the WHO's guidelines yourself. Here's the WHO guidance as of April [1] June [2], which is pretty early. You can see the guidance evolve during that time and it was still early. Here is the CBC's public notice on March 25, a couple weeks before the epidemic hit hard in Canada [3] "The advice on whether or not to wear masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19 has shifted since the start of the pandemic. Public health officials now say that wearing masks can prevent some potentially infectious respiratory droplets from spreading to others, but most still recommend that N95 masks, above, be reserved for health care settings." Frankly, the only thing I remember about masks early on was 'get them to the front line workers' to the point where in my family we were going to donate our own N95s to the hospital, but they were already used. [1] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331693/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.3-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331693/WHO-... [2] https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---5-june-2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... [3] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/masks-coronavirus-1.5507186 https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/masks-coronavirus-1.5507186