On Tuesday night, Violet Affleck gave fans of her famous parents, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, insight into why she is frequently seen wearing a face mask in public, as she appeared before a government meeting to call for masks to be made compulsory in Los Angeles hospitals “to confront the long COVID crisis.”
Appearing before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in a protective face mask, and introducing herself as “Violet Affleck, Los Angeles resident, first-time voter and 18,” the recent high school graduate revealed that she had contracted a “post-viral,” long-COVID-like condition in 2019. During her short but impassioned statement, she said that masks should be made available in government facilities and called on the county to oppose “mask bans.”
“I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019,” the teenager revealed during the public comment portion of the meeting. “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.”
“One in 10 infections leads to long COVID, which is a devastating neurological (and) cardiovascular illness that can take away people’s ability to work, move, see, and even think,” Violet Affleck continued, pointing out that the condition affects socially vulnerable people more than the rest of the population.
A clip of Violet’s speech was posted on X, prompting some people to dismiss her as the daughter of “radical lefties Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner,” to question the effectiveness of masks or to say that her choice to wear a mask should not be imposed on others.
But others praised Affleck and Garner’s daughter standing up for an important cause, saying, “I want to be Violet’s bestie,” and that her parents “should be so proud.” Someone declared: “Violet nailed this! I’m showing this to my 7 & 9 year old girls as a great example of a smart, thoughtful and self assured young woman 1) doing what she knows is right, even in the face of massive societal pressure to cave 2) using her voice & privilege for the greater good.”
Violet’s advocacy for this topic actually should come as no surprise to the “COVID-conscious corners of Twitter,” where she had already developed something of a fan base for being “being one of the last face-mask-wearers in Hollywood,” New York magazine’s The Cut reported in May. (One notable exception to Violet’s mask-wearing appears to be when she accompanied Garner to a state dinner at the White House in December 2022.)
The Violet Affleck fan base got revved up in May, when she and her family started to become the daily targets of paparazzi, who were chronicling reports of her father’s breakup from current wife Jennifer Lopez. Violet, who reportedly is headed to Yale University in the fall, was frequently seen in photos, wearing a protective mask while on outings around Los Angeles with her famous parents.
In one instance, when the masked teenager was photographed with Garner at a sporting event, someone wrote on X: “Once again Violet Affleck proving that she’s the smartest one in her family.”
In another situation when Violet was photographed with her mother, she appeared to be carrying a brand new 3M respirator. The image prompted an associate professor in community health at the University of Illinois to tweet, “+1 for Violet Affleck. When will someone interview Violet to discuss her longterm commitment to health & safety from our ONGOING SARS2 PANDEMIC?”
Someone else revived a 2023 photo of Violet with her father and Lopez. She had worn a mask while accompanying her father and stepmother to the star-studded Fourth of July party in the Hamptons hosted by business mogul Michael Rubin. “Violet Affleck is my new hero,” the person wrote on X. “She was the only party goer at an A-list billionaire party to wear a mask — and a 3M Aura at that,”
The Cut furthermore reported that Violent was carrying “some pointed reading” while on yet another outing with Garner in May. The book was Steven Thrasher’s “The Viral Underclass,” an award-winning 2022 nonfiction book that explores “vast inequalities” in American society, impacting how viruses spread and who is able to survive them.
It’s possible that Violet had this book in mind when she spoke Tuesday night, asking the L.A. County Supervisors “to confront the long COVID crisis” by increasing “mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC light in government facilities, including (in) jails and detention centers” and to enforce “mask mandates in county medical facilities.”
Violet concluded her statement to the supervisors by saying that mask bans “do not keep us safer, they make vulnerable members of our community less safe and make everyone less able to participate in Los Angeles together.”
With regard to long COVID, the Mayo Clinic said that post-COVID syndrome symptoms can include fatigue, symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort, fever, and respiratory symptoms, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath and cough.