We All Breathe The Same Air (FREE PRINTABLE Download)
Shared air means we’re in this together.
When the government decided it was time to stop footing the bill for our ongoing pandemic, they strategically decided to emphasize “individual choice” over collective effort.
From Stop the Spread to You Do You, we’ve seen public messaging shift dramatically over the past four years. These shifts in collective consciousness have enabled public health infrastructure to be built, then dismantled around us. As our government transfers the burden of care from the collective to the individual, we’re encouraged to abandon basic principles of public health (and each other!) so capitalism can carry on and CEOs can continue to collect their checks.
But the pandemic rages on.
Keeping everyone safe requires collective effort and a massive culture shift! This poster reframes and re-emphasizes our shared responsibility to protect each other from harmful airborne pathogens and particles, from Covid to RSV to wildfire smoke.
This poster is free and printable.
These open-source PDF versions are free for you to print and hang around town (or in your classroom!) to encourage mask-wearing and collective care. Each PDF download contains two 11x17” pages, one for printing in color, one black-and-white. Print and share widely!
Printed posters available for shipping soon. The color version of this poster passes WCAG’s AA contrast ratio guidelines. I made this poster independently of the People’s CDC, but I highly recommend visiting peoplescdc.org for up-to-date information on Covid.
Science shows that masks work to prevent Covid transmission in schools:
This poster reads, “We All Breathe The Same Air.” Below, in smaller letters, it reads:
“A study that used wastewater signals to identify cases of Covid-19 found that even a small increase int he proportion of people wearing masks at elementary schools in one California county significantly reduced the chance of a case. For each 10% increase in the proportion of people wearing a mask in elementary schools, there was a 47% decrease in the probability of a case of Covid-19 in the next 5 days.”
Source: Fielding-Miller, et al. Abstract 210. Presented at: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; Feb 19-22, 2023; Seattle
Why is protecting kids from Covid at school so important?
A June 2023 study published by JAMA Network Open took a look at 850,000 US household Covid-19 transmissions from October 2019 - October 2022. They found that 70.4% of all of these cases started with a child. The study’s authors wrote, “Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."
This study shows us that mitigating Covid in schools is integral to protecting all of us from this incredibly dangerous virus.
Source: Tseng Y, Olson KL, Bloch D, Mandl KD. Smart Thermometer–Based Participatory Surveillance to Discern the Role of Children in Household Viral Transmission During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(6):e2316190. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.16190