Violet Affleck, the 19-year-old daughter of actors Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, addressed the United Nations in New York City on Tuesday, speaking on the importance of masks and preventative health measures more than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The college freshman appeared at an event titled Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action, where she urged leaders to prioritize clean air infrastructure and mask use to combat the spread of airborne illnesses.
Violet, a first-year student at Yale University’s Davenport College, told attendees that ignoring mask use amounted to a failure to protect children.
“It is 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,’” she said.
She argued that society’s push to return to “normal” life had caused people to downplay both the spread of the virus and the risks of Long COVID.
“For adults, the relentless beat of ‘back to normal,’ ignoring, downplaying, and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of Long COVID manifested in a series of choices,” she said.
Violet has been a visible advocate for mask mandates since 2023, when she called for such rules in medical facilities after speaking publicly about her own “post-viral condition” that she contracted in 2019.
In paparazzi photos, she has frequently been seen wearing a mask in public, often while family members chose not to.
She has also used fashion statements to amplify her political messages.
Last year, Violet wore a black sweater decorated with a watermelon, which was interpreted as a message of solidarity with Palestine.
The photograph went viral and caused a spike in demand for the sweatshirt, produced by Chicago-based clothing company Wear the Peace.
The surge in sales prompted the company to hire additional staff.
A few months later, she appeared in public wearing a mask with a pink summer dress, while carrying the book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher.
The book explores how race, policing and criminalization intersect with global health issues, particularly HIV.
Delivering her remarks at the UN, Violet warned that “our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”
She added that young people had been left with “both real choice in the matter and information about what was being chosen for us.”
She called for clean air to be recognized as a human right.
“We can recognize filtered air as a human right as intuitively as we do filtered water,” she said.
“We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, tomorrow’s children don’t even know why we need it.”
The Daily Mail highlighted that this past May, Violet authored an article in the Yale Global Health Review focusing on Los Angeles’ handling of the pandemic and climate change.
In it, she argued that eliminating the virus required mask use, employer-provided paid sick leave, universal healthcare, and environmental measures to keep air clean.
She also urged the public to distribute free masks.
“In the same way that COVID-conscious and disabled people celebrate each chain of transmission broken,” Violet wrote, “climate scientists recognize that each degree of warming we avoid will be a victory.”
In 2023, Violet spoke before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors about addressing Long COVID.
“I demand mask availability, air filtration and Far-UVC light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities,” she said during her testimony.
At the July 2024 meeting, she argued that laws suppressing mandatory mask use endangered vulnerable populations.
“It stands to exacerbate our homelessness crisis, as well as the suffering of many people in our city. It hits communities of color, disabled people, elderly people, trans people, women and anyone in a public facing essential job the hardest,” she told the board.
She also called for investments in Personal Protective Equipment and urged officials to oppose bans on masks.
“You must expand the availability of high-quality free tests and treatment, and most importantly the county must oppose mask bans for any reason,” she said.
“They do not keep us safer.”
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