Yeah, I think it's just one of those gamer isolation masks (or a weird stenography mask).

you put your mic inside it but it muffles the sound from the rest of the room. Some people use them as steno masks, or just to be polite while in the office and you're in a bunch of meetings or similar. They've been around for ages, they got really popular during covid.

They might be using it for text-to-speech, but it's a product that's existed for years for use with text to speech so it's not particularly a sign of the times.

It does look like a stenomask, but the over the nose thing is different. I don't know why you wouldn't just type. Maybe it dampens the screaming.

That cord to the mask is definitely an audio cord.