Reading this meta-analysis, I wonder how well it would stand up to the independent bias review they used to exclude studies from their findings.

It certainly reads like it has an axe to grind (see Introduction and below).

Although there are certainly populations of children and adults that suffer disproportionately from masking (whether due to respiratory, auditory, or psychological issues, or just from being so young that the mask soaks through in minutes), my overall experience with elementary and middle school aged kids during the early years of the pandemic was that they found masking easy and didn't really care about it. They were thrilled to be in-person with each other.

Of course, their masking practices was not ideal, they often forgot them or wore them wrong, or used less effective materials, but the act of masking itself wasn't generally a big deal.

Our community has a huge Let Them Breathe presence, but even here it was the adults who were making all the anti-masking noise. The kids just didn't care.

I do wish we had better data on efficacy of masking mandates. This review doesn't bring any new clarity.