Unfortunately, the recommendations from most (all?) top-level officials in the US right at the beginning of the pandemic was for the general public NOT to wear masks (including Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, etc). This absolutely didn’t help matters when later they had to change their tune and recommend then mandate masks, after they had said that they were not needed.
Here’s a nice compilation video of these statements over the first couple of months of the pandemic: piped.video/watch?v=tRE59LJc6CA