<em>The Atlantic Daily: </em>'It’s a Bad Week to Be a Racist Statue'

Our staff writer Graeme Wood suggests taking a cue from Germany, where the Nazi Party Rally Grounds have been left to become overgrown and fall into disrepair.

Further reading:  

This isn’t just a domestic conversation.

Statues are falling worldwide. Adam Hochschild, a historian and journalist who covered the fight to decolonize one museum earlier this year, reflects on the week’s events:

When I wrote some months ago about arguments over colonialism surrounding a Belgian museum, I never imagined similar issues would suddenly be on front pages everywhere. As the video of George Floyd’s brutal killing ricocheted around the world, one target of people’s pent-up anger has been the most visible symbols of an older racial order. A crowd seized a statue of a British slave trader and pushed it into Bristol Harbor. Statues of Confederate officers are coming down in various parts of the American South. And in Belgium, at least five statues or busts of King Leopold II, the ruthless conqueror and colonizer of the Congo, have been splashed with red paint. Two have been removed. So far, more than 63,000 people have signed a petition demanding that all statues of the king in the country—and there are many more—be taken down by the end of this month.

As my friend the writer Rebecca Solnit said to me, “It’s a bad week to be a racist statue.” Ending racism itself, of course, in all its forms, will be a far harder and longer process. But in these tumultuous last few weeks, I’m feeling more optimistic than I have for a long time that people are taking that goal seriously.

One question, answered: A Social Distance podcast listener asked: “Can you guys please unpack the WHO kerfuffle on asymptomatic transmission?”

Our reporter Jim Hamblin (who is also a doctor) explains said kerfuffle: A World Health Organization official said this week that asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus is “very rare.” The comment was picked up by some news organizations, but it seems that “a tiny fragment of a comment was taken out of context,” Jim explains; while “we know that people in asymptomatic phases are contagious,” we don’t know the exact breakdown of cases spread by people who are asymptomatic the whole time, versus those who do eventually develop symptoms, versus those who are experiencing symptoms.

The statement was revoked, and the WHO clarified that we don’t know these exact numbers.

The takeaway? “It’s really important that people recognize that you can be asymptomatic and still spreading” the virus, Jim says.