Then why were they saving masks for healthcare workers?

Healthcare workers wear masks regardless. The argument was never that no kind of mask would ever help at all in any case, it was that the benefit wasn't that serious at that point since ostensibly people wouldn't use them properly, they wouldn't be N95 masks so not as effective, they would mostly only prevent people from giving it to others and not from not contracting it themselves, that they would give people a false sense of security, and that healthcare workers work in an environment where there are tons of aerosols being produced. I remember all that sort of stuff going around, and the central point seemed to be "we should save them for the healthcare workers".

Like, if they knew it would make a big difference, they could have just asked governments to ration them for the time being.

Can you post some of these studies and meta studies that show the masks weren’t effective at preventing SARS infections? I posted some.

Yes, but not now because I'm on mobile. I remember reading them because I remember many articles back then citing them.