Nineteen-year-old Violet Affleck, daughter of Hollywood stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, recently took center stage at the United Nations. She delivered a powerful speech, urging global leaders to make mask-wearing mandatory. Violet stood there as a youth advocate on Tuesday, September 23, speaking up for clean air. She stressed the importance of masks to stop the spread of long Covid.
“Leaders from all sides tell us we are the future,” she said, her K95 mask firmly in place. “But, when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, they are stealing our present right before our eyes.” Violet didn’t hold back. She criticized adults for their “endless push to get back to normal.” She felt they ignored, downplayed, and hid the truth about how the virus travels through the air. She also pointed out the real danger of long Covid. Young people, she argued, had no real choice in this matter. They also lacked information about decisions made for them.
The first-year college student then shared more details about the virus. “Here’s what we know about SARS-CoV-2,” she explained. “It’s an airborne virus. It floats and stays suspended. One infection can cause disabling harm to almost every cell in the body. This includes the brain, heart, nerves, and blood vessels.” She added that each new infection increases the risk of long-term health problems. It also puts those already suffering in more danger.
Violet continued, quoting a medical expert: “As Dr. Akiko Iwasaki says, at this point, the whole population is the control group. In just five years, long Covid has become more common than asthma. It’s now the most common chronic illness in children five years old or younger.”
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck BG004/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Later in her speech, Violet admitted she was “terrified” for school children. She worried they might not know a world without “debilitating pain and exhaustion.” They might not be able to trust their bodies to play, explore, or imagine after getting sick. “I am furious for them,” she declared. “It’s a huge act of neglect to look kids in the eye and say, ‘We knew how to protect you, and we didn’t.'” She highlighted how we have the technology to stop airborne diseases. Millions of people in the past and today would give anything for it, yet we refuse to use it.
Violet also shared her fears about “where we will be in another five years of uncontrolled infections and reinfections.” She expanded her message, comparing the current situation to the fight against smoking in public places. “Many of you fought for years against indoor smoking,” she reminded everyone. “My only memory of that time, at almost 20 years old, is the confusion I felt as a child seeing ‘no smoking’ signs on planes. ‘Who would do that? That’s gross,’ I remembered thinking.” She ended with a hopeful note. “My hope for this event and my faith in this community are built on the belief that we can and must achieve this again. We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as obvious as clean water.”
She wrapped up her address with a vision for the future. “We can create clean air systems that are so common and clearly needed that kids in the future won’t even know why we needed them.”
For context, Violet’s famous parents, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, are both 53. They were married from 2005 to 2018. Besides Violet, they also have two other children: Seraphina, 16, and Samuel, 13. Violet has joined her mom at public events before, including a White House state dinner in 2022. Earlier this year, she also penned an emotional essay about how the recent California wildfires affected her community.