Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s daughter, Violet, delivered an emotional speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, advocating for clean air and the use of masks to help prevent the spread of long COVID-19. The 19-year-old has long been an advocate for public health and addressed the UN while wearing a K95 mask. "We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future," she said. "But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes." Violet called out adults for "the relentless beat of back to normal, ignoring downplaying, and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of long COVID."
The Yale University student continued: "Young people lacked both real choice in the matter and information about what was being chosen for us. Here's what we know about SARS CoV2. It is airborne, floating and lingering in the air, one infection can result in disabling damage to almost every cell in the body from the brain and heart to the nerves and blood vessels."
© UN Web TV"Every subsequent infection increases the risk of long movement and places people who already have it in greater danger," she added. "As Dr. Akiko Iwasaki says, at this point, the whole population is the control group, and after only five years, long COVID has surpassed asthma as the most common chronic illness in children in five years and under."
Violet admitted that she was "terrified" for children who "will not know a world without debilitating pain and exhaustion, who cannot trust their bodies to play, explore, and imagine" after being infected by COVID-19.
"I am furious on their behalf," she explained. "It is a neglect of the highest order to look children in the eyes and say, 'We knew how to protect you and we didn't do it. We have access to a technology to prevent airborne disease, something that millions of our ancestors and millions of people around the world today would kill for, and we refuse to use it. And I shudder to think of where we will be in another five years of unmitigated infection and reinfection."
© GettyThe teenager went on to address the movement to ban smoking in public areas. "Many of you fought the long and hard battle against indoor smoking. My only memory of that era at almost 20 years old is being confused as a child about the no smoking signs on planes. 'Who would do that? That's gross,'" she said.
"My hope for this event and my belief in this community pressed on the belief that we can and we must do that again," she added. "We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as intuitively as we do filtered water."
© Juliano/X17online.comViolet continued: "We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, so that tomorrow's children don't even know why we need it."
This isn't the first time Violet has advocated for public health and mask availability. During an L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting in July 2024, she said: "I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. I'm OK now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief."
