Fauci said in a 60 minutes interview back in March: "Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks" and "When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is." [0]
However that was before the CDC issued in early april its recommendation to wear masks [1]
The noble lie is typically a regrettable idea. Eventually exposed, it undermines trust in institutions by setting them in opposition to the public.
“We had to lie to you because you wouldn’t have done the right thing otherwise. That is to say, you are bad and we are good.”