Violet Affleck, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's Daughter, Speaks About the Impacts Of COVID in U.N. Address: 'Our Present Is Being Stolen' Madison E. GoldbergSeptember 24, 2025 at 1:10 AM 0 UN Web TV Violet Affleck delivered a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, Sept.
- - Violet Affleck, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's Daughter, Speaks About the Impacts Of COVID in U.N. Address: 'Our Present Is Being Stolen'
Madison E. GoldbergSeptember 24, 2025 at 1:10 AM
0
UN Web TV
Violet Affleck delivered a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, Sept. 23 regarding the impacts of COVID-19 on children
She said that "filtered air" should be regarded as a human right
The Yale University freshman has long been an outspoken public health advocate
Violet Affleck, the daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, delivered an impassioned speech in favor of clean air and masking to prevent the transmission of long COVID-19 in an address at the United Nations on Tuesday, Sept. 23.
"We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future, Violet, 19, began. "But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes." She delivered the address while wearing a K95 mask.
Violet then criticized 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."
She is currently a freshman at Yale University, where she recently published an academic paper on the Los Angeles County wildfires, which occurred in January.
"Young people lacked both real choice in the matter and information about what was being chosen for us," she added.
She then went on to detail information regarding the virus at the root of COVID-19. "Here's what we know about SARS CoV2," Violet said. "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."
She added that "Every subsequent infection increases the risk of long movement and places people who already have it in greater danger."
"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 detailed.
She then expressed fears over the spread of the virus in schools, saying 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 said. "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."
Sarah Silbiger/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty
Violet Affleck
"And I shudder to think of where we will be in another five years of unmitigated infection and reinfection," she added, before detailing another public health fight: 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 recalled, to laughs from the audience.
"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 said. "We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as intuitively as we do filtered water."
She added, "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."
In a July 2024 L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting, she took the stand during the Public Comment section, as seen in a clip shared on X at the time.
At the time, she advocated for mask availability and high-quality free testing while also stating her opposition to mask bans.
"I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019," the teenager revealed during her speech at L.A.'s Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, adding, "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."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: ShowBiz MAG
Full Article on Source: ShowBiz MAG
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities