Her eyes are those of her famous mother’s – but Violet Affleck’s mouth was well concealed behind her expansive mask as she addressed the UN this week, urging the audience to redouble efforts to eliminate Covid – by once again enforcing us all to wear face coverings.
The daughter of Hollywood actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner is just 19. She’s no doctor or scientist, but rather an ‘activist’ in her second year at university.
Without her famous parents, it’s highly unlikely she would be addressing the world’s great and good about the importance of clean air.
Older people, she said in a speech of high emotion, showed grave irresponsibility by urging us all to get back to normal after the pandemic – and this was seriously impacting young people.
‘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”,’ said Violet, who has a post-viral condition.
Watching her speak, I first felt sorry for the teenager – it was all too clear that we were witnessing someone who had been catapulted onto a global stage who, instead, desperately needed to experience life and its complexities.
My second thought was that her behaviour bore some similarities to patients I have treated in my NHS psychiatric practice who have significant health anxiety, and other forms of anxiety.
It is people with these mental health conditions who are most likely to still insist on wearing Covid-era masks and gloves today, long after most of us have happily consigned them to the bin.
Violet Affleck spoke at a UN event entitled Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call To Action yesterday
Of course, diagnoses of this kind can only truly be made when one has met with and treated a patient firsthand.
But Violet’s statements tap into what I see a lot of in my clinic – anxiety rates among young people which are much higher than in previous generations.
It’s normal for every doctor, particularly those whose practices cover universities, to see anxiety in young patients.
Today, though, many youngsters are demonstrating hypochondriacal tendencies.
For example, they are convinced a certain symptom means they must have cancer. They accelerate to the worst-case scenario very quickly. What Violet is saying feeds into a preoccupation with physical and mental health which many of her generation have.
When it comes to mask-wearing itself, from what I have seen, there are two types of patient who will still insist on using them.
Among younger ones, it is those who are middle class, and who have been raised with highly protective ‘helicopter’ parents. Older patients who still hide behind their masks and gloves tend to be less scientifically literate. Both groups are likely to have anxiety – it’s almost inevitable that if I see someone walk in wearing a mask, their records will show a long history of anxiety disorders.
Their mask-wearing is a dangerous thing because it gives their anxiety an air of legitimacy.
This, they are declaring with their mask, is a virtue signal: this is the right thing to do. This is not about my anxiety – this is about me being responsible and cautious, which is what all doctors want me to be.
It’s very hard to challenge people in this mindset, but I have done – and continue to do so.
The reality is that we cannot eliminate Covid, as Violet appears to hope we will.
No mask can do that – the evidence basis for their efficacy is minimal – and regardless, Covid has entered into the roster of viruses circulating about us that will simply always be around.
And the irony is that by not tackling her anxiety – ie. by removing her mask and confronting the world in all its messy reality – her post-viral condition is only likely to exacerbate.
Violet wears her mask on a trip out with her mother, the actress Jennifer Garner, in California last year
I’ve seen again and again that the more preoccupied a patient becomes with, for example, their chronic post-viral fatigue syndrome, the more diminished their experience of the world is. And so their wellbeing falls off a cliff.
The treatment is to get them back outside, not keep them inside or hiding behind a ‘protective’ mask.
Studies have proved that mask-wearing increases anxiety, and only ensures you view people as potential contagions; as dangerous threats.
There are complex reasons for the rise in this kind of health anxiety: certainly, the constant bombardment of information online contributes.
Modern cosseting parenting styles, which are so different from previous generations, also have a lot to do with it.
Young people like Violet Affleck, who insist on wearing masks post-Covid, grew up at a time when they were being told to protect themselves by cocooning themselves away from the world. Rather than mingling, they were locked at home. It didn’t surprise me to see that Violet was 14 during the pandemic – a formative age, when you should be slowly moving away from your parents, rather than being locked in with them. Resilience was unlikely to be bred under such circumstances.
Violet claims she is speaking for those who are disadvantaged and need protections from illnesses.
I worked throughout Covid, meeting patients face to face. I will never forget the mother who lived in a single room with her two autistic children, who begged me to take them from her or she would kill herself and her babies. She wasn’t even allowed to go to the park with them.
Violet Affleck, who likely endured the pandemic in her mansion with her wealthy parents, simply cannot claim to be advocating for the poor.
Social deprivation will not be cured by mask-wearing – nor will Covid. And neither, for that matter, will anxiety.
