---
title: Cover coughs, cover sneezes. Never give a germ a break!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cover-coughs-cover-sneezes-war-department-1944/
description: Photograph of three soldiers at a mess table, the centre one sneezing a visible spray across the food trays while the men beside him recoil.
section: Collection
---

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3. Cover coughs, cover sneezes. Never give a germ a break!

[![Cover coughs, cover sneezes. Never give a germ a break!, 1944 US poster: Photograph of three soldiers at a mess table](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cover-coughs-cover-sneezes-war-department-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cover-coughs-cover-sneezes-war-department-1944.jpg)

# Cover coughs, cover sneezes. Never give a germ a break!

Photograph of three soldiers at a mess table, the centre one sneezing a visible spray across the food trays while the men beside him recoil, under 'Cover coughs, cover sneezes' and 'Never give a germ a break!'. The technique is fear-appeal: the spray and the reactions dramatise contagion in shared quarters.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
COVER COUGHS
COVER SNEEZES
NEVER GIVE A GERM A BREAK!
Distribution: Continental: In accordance with Part II, ASF Cir. No. 313, 1944 and Section I, ASF Cir. No. 181, 1944. Overseas: T of Opns (10); Depts (10); S+C (10); Base Comds (10); Island Comds (10); Def Comds (10); Sectors (10); Base Sectors (10); Armies (1); Corps (1); D (1); B (1); R (1); Sep Bn (1).
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944—O—619226
Approved War Department Graphic Training Aid 8-14
WAR DEPARTMENT · 12 OCTOBER 1944
Reproduction without permission prohibited
```

[← ... Could happen to you. Be alert!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/could-happen-to-you-be-alert-1944/) [Cracks start at square corners: make corners round! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cracks-start-at-square-corners-1944/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)