The ultimate goal of Trump's lies was to preserve the insurance and privatized medical industry in America. As a business, the industry can never properly prepare for such things as a pandemic because that would require stockpiling resources. A business never stocks more than its expected need because doing so directly erodes profits.

When the need for respirators and masks suddenly increased by hundreds fold the federal government could have funded the production of those items, just like it funded production of weapons in WWII, but that would have come dangerously close (for private business) to proving the benefit of a single payer healthcare system. Better that Americans die than to have capitalism challenged. Trump even went so far as to stockpile and withhold many supplies to create an even bigger shortage and bolster profits.