If this is the case, why don't we see long covid symptoms in certain professions? I spent an internship working in a clean room wearing full PPE including an N95 mask for my entire 9-5. Didn't ever experience long covid symptoms.
Whatever proportion of people actually complain of the long covid symptoms that could be caused by masks, maybe a similar proportion of people have effects like that in those professions, but before covid, it didn't have a name. It's hard to identify anything that doesn't have a name.