The point of these arguments is to show that public health pronouncements can be political in nature and our chief authorities are not afraid to lie in order to achieve what they believe is a greater good.
It is not the specific content of the lie that is the issue, but the lack of integrity on display. It is used as a retort to "official X declared Y", and is meant to undermine the integrity of official pronouncements in general. There are many who bristled at these initial claims by pointing out (correctly) that promoting "noble lies" is terrible for public health officials and doing so would come back to bite them. For some reason, the medical profession seems to accept noble lies as being justified when the rest of society does not. This goes back to the old saw of doctors lying to their patients about their own health. It's a blemish on the profession, and one that needs to be erased and apologized for ASAP, and IMO, Fauci belongs to that old school and doesn't really get it -- and probably never will.
Also, as a protip to your finding of the fact that masks were being lied about but they themselves don't want to wear masks as being "ironic": the literal meaning of "irony" refers to saying something but meaning the opposite. For instance "Sure, I trust you", when the speaker clearly doesn't. There is also situational irony, which would be when the opposite of what is intended happens. E.g. trying to kill someone by giving them a poison that ends up curing them. So in this case, the irony would be saying a "noble lie" with the intention of saving lives but actually causing more lives to be lost -- that would be the true irony here.
It is not the specific content of the lie that is the issue, but the lack of integrity on display. It is used as a retort to "official X declared Y", and is meant to undermine the integrity of official pronouncements in general. There are many who bristled at these initial claims by pointing out (correctly) that promoting "noble lies" is terrible for public health officials and doing so would come back to bite them. For some reason, the medical profession seems to accept noble lies as being justified when the rest of society does not. This goes back to the old saw of doctors lying to their patients about their own health. It's a blemish on the profession, and one that needs to be erased and apologized for ASAP, and IMO, Fauci belongs to that old school and doesn't really get it -- and probably never will.
Also, as a protip to your finding of the fact that masks were being lied about but they themselves don't want to wear masks as being "ironic": the literal meaning of "irony" refers to saying something but meaning the opposite. For instance "Sure, I trust you", when the speaker clearly doesn't. There is also situational irony, which would be when the opposite of what is intended happens. E.g. trying to kill someone by giving them a poison that ends up curing them. So in this case, the irony would be saying a "noble lie" with the intention of saving lives but actually causing more lives to be lost -- that would be the true irony here.