Safer Gatherings Toolkit

The Safer Gatherings Toolkit: Community Care First! was developed by the Peoples CDC (1) to dispel mainstream narratives which minimize and normalize COVID transmission; and (2) to provide information about how to gather in person more safely in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.

With 2000+ people dying each week, pediatric hospitals full of children struggling to breathe, and countless people becoming newly disabled from Long COVID in this country; the Biden Administration’s talking heads continue to insist that we can wash our hands of COVID. The State has failed to provide protection and safety. It is up to us to protect each other, while advocating for public health protections that protect the most vulnerable. We cannot accept mass infection. We must make our in-person gatherings safer for EVERYONE. 

We hope that this toolkit can be used as a conversation starter with local grassroots organizations, professional associations, unions, friend groups, and families. We hope that it moves all of us to think about choosing layers of protection as an act of practical solidarity and community care rather than as an individual act of personal safety. 

There are so many ways to gather remotely, and we urge people to consider remote options whenever possible. When we are choosing to be together in-person, using multiple layers of protection is the best way to protect each other. This guide outlines 10 individual layers of protection and provides information about how and why to use each one.