rotting sea cow

Could you be more specific? If the virus had origins in Iran, the whole ME would be already overwhelmed with the disease. There is way more exchange between Iran and Iraq/Pakistan/etc than with China. Even S. Arabia allows Persian tourists visiting Mecca. I don't give these reports more credit than to those that this was a lab virus that escaped from Chinese experiments or was an American biological against China. All of which I've read in different forums and social media. I just recovered from what I think was my first time experience with the flu and now I fear it that way. Never felt so bad in my life. I used to laugh about it being a healthy male but now I can see that people can die from it. I cannot even imagine getting the flu with some underlying health condition besides. . Well, established media are not behaving better (with exceptions of course). The printed pages are I see on the streets are clearly instigating panic. What the fuck are they thinking? For that shit do we have freedom of press? Hopefully governments will set them straight and soon. Because it is an American biological weapon against China!!1!!1! (see above)

I think the whole article is completely out of mark and just trying to get some political points just because politics. A more sober article by the some The Atlantic puts the things more clearly https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/ etc

Well, I feel much better now. Last Friday, I had a very bad day with diarrhea and vomiting but somehow that helped a lot. Like cleansed up. Fever went away and I was able to get decent sleep. Now I have only some cough, for first time in 20 years, I think.

Interestingly, last Friday after a day of vomiting and diarrhea I started to feel much better. Like cleansed up. Fever went away and now I only had a cough for first time in 20 years, I think. Well, I think I never felt so bad in my life. Maybe as a small kid. Like beaten up. I couldn't even sleep.

Clear and up-to-the-date information of the symptoms, mortality, susceptibility, prevention measures, possible treatments, course of action for people, etc. Governments should be predictable regarding the possible measures to be applied under particular circumstances (e.g. in case of pandemic/epidemic). People around me are getting anxious regarding travel plans and even foodstores. Thing is that media is not helping. Government should tell them to calm down and do not spread panic. Government are not looking too transparent either regarding possible measures (I live in Europe btw). Exactly my point. Before shits hit the fan, there should be clear information so people stay calm.

Sure, but my point is going whether should we allow the panic to spread. For that we need accurate information about expected fatality rate, symptoms, complications, prevention, most vulnerable populations, etc. Let's say if a colleague got the virus, what should I expect (a young healthy male) as the most probable outcome. I'm just coming out from a very bad flu. Is this going to be worse? This touches another point. I guess with the outbreaks in S. Korea, Iran and Italy we can kiss goodbye to containment. This thing is going to spread no matter what. The question, what will the response of governments to this. Currently, I'm more worried about getting myself in a prolonged lock-down situation than from getting the virus.

What about the cases that passed undetected because symptoms were too mild to the person to worry about?

This is what I mean. Every time we look at some sexual relationship we can always come up with a "but..." which is kind of weird.

But GRRM is a contemporary author. We are not reading Don Quixote or some ancient story. Why did our author choose to give us so many problematic scenes when sex is concerned? A possibility is just to show that this is an abusive world, where is difficult to have healthy friendships, relationships, sex, power structures, etc. We see for example, very few friendships, so it's not unexpected that also healthy relationships are rare.

Well may be. But it's rape reenactment, which brings other problems. Unfortunately we only see the aftermath because it could have been something nice. Arys is full of guilt because he's in love with Arianne. From the sexual PoV is probably the most healthy one however, one cannot forget that Dany is 16yo and sentences like "That night Daario had her every way a man can have a woman, and she gave herself to him willingly" are still problematic. I don't want to sound old-fashioned. I know what teens do at that age and I know what I did at that age. Still, do we need to read that? as you say

Hardly any sex scene in the books is unproblematic or unmistakably consensual. It's another problem in the books.

I tend to agree with @Lord Varys. Whilst loving Daemon fits in the book themes of tragedy and "the heart at war with itself", it doesn't mean that everything can be explained solely from that perspective. If we look at the quote: "I have my own ghosts. A brother I loved, a brother I hated, a woman I desired. In my dreams I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them." He is basically saying that he did all what he did (including an enormous amount of shit) out of love for a brother, out of hate for another, out of lust for a woman. Now he understand his life better he would like to explain that to them, but he can't.

Battles and immediate aftermath should take about a third of a ADWD sized book. Then is indeed possible we see the consequences of the said battles on a longer time span. How far in time should depend on how long the book is and in particular whether Dany has set sail to Westeros before the end of the book. Because her bulldozing through Essos will not take less than six months and possibly more.

mmmmm Milder? I used to laugh about the flu and I even participated in those silly "swine flu" parties during the scare some years ago. I only got labial herpes because of kissing too many girls (or maybe from that spicy vegan burger I ate afterwards). Now I can see the shit is serious, I can't even sleep from the discomfiture and I didn't have such a fever (39.3C last night, now is better) since I was a kid. The overall feeling is like someone gave me a beating. Hopefully yu right about a swift recovery. That was the doctor said this morning. I had to go there because I need to justify the absence otherwise I woudn't have move. He thinks is the swine flu because of the severity of the symptoms. I was never knocked-out from a normal cold.

Maybe a rhetorical question for many, but here I'm, bedridden feeling like sh1t. The thing is I think I never caught the flu before and I never vaccinated before my current position, but HR of my current workplace encourages it (and actually put some pressure) because it prevents absences, blahblahblah. They even send people to our offices if we want it. Nevertheless I'm seeing lots of cancelled meetings and people sending emails apologizing. Like every year. Similar experiences anyone?