Violet Affleck, daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, addressed U.N. on COVID, clean air efforts

Violet Affleck is advocating for clean air initiatives. The eldest daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner delivered a speech about the importance of mask mandates and clean air efforts to members of the United Nations on Tuesday, Sept. 23.

“We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes,” the 19-year-old said at the Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action event.

Affleck shared her concerns over the adverse impact that “ignoring, downplaying and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of long COVID” can have on future generations.

“I am terrified for the children who do not, or soon will not, know a world without debilitating pain and exhaustion; who cannot trust their bodies to play, explore and imagine; who will not know the potential of their own minds unfettered by the cognitive damage of a COVID-19 infection,” she added.

The teen, who wore a 3M respirator during her speech, advocated for recognizing filtered air as a human right. She also urged those who “remember 2020” to join her in pushing for stronger protections going forward.

“We can recognize filtered air as a human right as intuitively as we do 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.”

This isn’t the first time Affleck has issued a call to action about prioritizing respiratory health. Below, we’ve rounded up the times the teen has spoken about the effects of coronavirus and long COVID, the continued need for clean air efforts and the pitfalls of rushing the return to normal following the pandemic.

Affleck pens article about COVID and the climate crisis

Affleck, who enrolled at Yale University as a freshman last fall, published an article about COVID and the climate crisis for the Yale Global Health Review, an undergraduate publication covering current issues in global health, earlier this year.

In the essay titled, A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles, published in May, Affleck points out paralleled responses to the L.A. wildfires and the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our bewildered response to crises like the LA fires tells us we may still be accustomed to addressing the climate crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic: as a question of how fast we can get back around to pretending like the problem is gone,” Affleck wrote.

Affleck then critiqued the “promised end” to the coronavirus pandemic as being more of a “public relations than public health” matter, citing public impatience, widely circulated misinformation and the influence corporate interest has over institutional public health to illustrate her point.

Affleck voices opposition to mask bans in Los Angeles

During a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting in 2024, Affleck talked about the importance of wearing a mask and the dangers that banning masks could pose to at-risk communities. The clean air advocate revealed during this speech that she had developed — and recovered from — long COVID early on in the pandemic.

“I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019,” said Affleck, who introduced herself as a “Los Angeles resident” and “first-time voter,” adding: “I’m OK now, but I saw firsthand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief.”

Affleck, then 18, voiced concern over the ways in which long COVID can exacerbate the city’s homelessness crisis and adversely impact communities of color, trans people, the elderly and those who are disabled.

“To confront the long COVID crisis, 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, before advocating for “high-quality free tests and treatment” and against mask bans “for any reason.”