We use Fastly (and our site is down too) but I asked them about this a couple of years ago.
It is deliberate.
They said it was so they can tell if it is their Varnish service or the customer's Varnish service that is down
Fastly modified the Varnish error to ensure that it is known if the error is returned by Fastly's Varnish or by the origin's Varnish should the customer run their own Varnish on the origin.