They made it clear after the fact that this was done because there wasn't an adequate supply of masks for 330M people, and they needed to secure a supply for first responders. The job of the government is to make tough decisions like this in times of crisis. You can agree or disagree but this was neither malicious nor in my opinion outside the scope of the role.
We also knew a lot less about what was going on at that time, and once again, that means we need to extend some degree of leniency to folks making conservative if difficult choices like this. If it came down to it yeah of course we need to secure the supply for first responders first.
Now we never should have been in that position in the first place but that was the fault of past administrations, not the CDC in the moment and didn't change what needed to be done.
> It was obvious to everyone and their dog that masks help stop the spread of respiratory infections.
Some masks, but not all masks. Single layer cloth masks do nothing. [1] N95s sure, but even at peak COVID most people weren't wearing N95s, they were wearing non-medical surgical-style masks, which only block between 30 and 70% of particles.
Even still while less effective than N95s, those surgical masks do help. [2]
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/8460528/masks-effectiveness-omicr...