Doesn't seem to be correct. If anything the acidosis would damage the sample and skew results the other way.

I didn't wear the masks during that time, except for a couple of hours per week when I had to due to one part of one job where it was required, but most times not. But I had to take those tests a couple of times when I got the flu in order to get my paid sick leave, and was told once that it was positive (ten days paid sick leave and that damn pass for half a year, which admittedly was sort of nice back then... nope, never took the jab, fortunate me didn't have to fight for that because I had a couple of jobs where I mostly worked alone, didn't need to deal with either customers or coworkers). That was after three days without donning a mask even once.

BTW, as I have some pollen allergies, those masks actually do help a bit with those if you spend a lot of time outside when it's thick, tried them because I had bought them and so had them when I had a bit more than average problems with pollen, but that was only after the whole "pandemic" was over. Well, pollen is a bit larger than viruses... the main problem is that wearing one outside looks stupid to a lot of people now, they just assume you are a moron.