right through when fauci himself was advocating against public mask wearing
It was specifically advocating against people who were stockpiling/hoarding disposable masks, which were in limited supply and needed far more by first responders, doctors, nurses, etc. Hospitals at that time literally were running out of masks.
The CDC recommendation at the time was to use reusable cloth masks, which werent/arent as good most of the time, but way way better than nothing at all.
It was a temporary recommendation as the economy was pivoting to bump up supply to compensate. The US proceeded to enlist a bunch of fabric companies to start producing more masks as fast as possible to compensate, so there was about a 2~3 week period where the public needed to prioritize.
It’s unfortunate a lot of people have taken to misquoting this time period as “Dr Fauci said using masks was bad” or such, which is deeply misrepresenting the state of things.