A clear statement back in February that everyone needs N-95 masks would not have changed the medical supply at all. Not at all. The medical system doesn't even use the same masks. The manufacturers make N-95 masks to specifications for the medical community. Medical N-95 masks are not like consumer N-95 masks. That production goes into the medical supply chain from the factory. All that was needed--and what was actually done--was that the factories cut off the consumer chain and put all their production into the medical supply chain.
But if they had made a clear statement back in February that everyone needed masks, that would have established an instant billion-dollar market to all the companies that could convert floor space to making N-95 masks. There would have been profit to be made, and America's free enterprise would have responded accordingly. General Motors, for instance, converted an auto assembly line to N-95 masks within a week purely on speculation that they'd be able to sell them.
Instead, they actually crippled a possible lucrative market at childbirth. We might all have the masks we need by now, including the medical community, if they had not said in February that nobody else should be wearing masks.