Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s 19-year-old daughter, Violet, who attends Yale University, addressed the United Nations about the impacts of the coronavirus
08:17, 24 Sep 2025Updated 09:17, 24 Sep 2025
Ben Affleck’s daughter powerful speech on the impacts of Covid at United Nations(Image: UN Web TV)
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s daughter delivered a powerful speech about the impacts of the coronavirus in an address at the United Nations on Tuesday. Violet, 19, spoke in favour of clean air and masking to prevent the transmission of long Covid-19 as she insisted that young people’s futures were ‘being stolen’.
Violet, who wore a K95 mask for the event, said: “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 went on to slam 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 continued: “Young people lacked both real choice in the matter and information about what was being chosen for us.
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Violet spoke about long-Covid at the United Nations(Image: UN Web TV)
“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.”
Violet also said 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,” she explained.
Violet said she’s ‘terrified’ for children and their health(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The teenager shared her worries over the spread of the virus in schools, adding 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”.
She went on: “I am furious on their behalf. 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,” she added, before detailing another public health fight: the movement to ban smoking in public areas.
She is the daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck(Image: Getty Images North America)
“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’.”
During her speech, Violet 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. We can recognize filtered air as a human right, as intuitively as we do filtered water. 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.”
The daughter of the former Hollywood couple is currently studying at Yale University, where she published an academic paper on the Los Angeles County wildfires.
Long Covid is when the symptoms of the virus last longer than 12 weeks. Most common symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain, memory problems, high temperature, blocked nose, a cough, a sore throat, chest pain, hair loss and more.
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