If you’re an obsessive reader of COVID news, you just might score 100 on our latest quiz on the most recent twists and turns in viral news.
Which country has begun using dogs at an airport to sniff out cases of COVID-19?
a) New Zealand
b) South Korea
c) Finland
d) Canada
A Chinese manufacturer of wax figures is citing the pandemic for the lack of orders for statues of:
a) Chinese President Xi Jinping
b) Tom Hanks
c) Chinese actress Gong Li
d) President Donald Trump
Psychologists say what social media activity has increased significantly during the pandemic?
a) Posting pictures of late family members
b) Doomscrolling
c) Blocking old high school classmates
d) Posting about food
While it was closed for six months due to the pandemic, the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores did what to keep revenue coming in?
a) Stream workouts featuring movements mimicking how the aquarium’s animals move.
b) Wash and cash in 100 gallons of coins deposited for luck in a fountain.
c) Offer private virtual encounters with one of the aquarium’s sea turtles, owls, parrots, alligators, snakes or vultures.
d) All of the above.
What type of genes can make people more likely to suffer severe forms of COVID-19?
a) Those inherited from Neanderthals.
b) Those linked to lung cancer.
c) Those linked to weak immune systems.
d) Those linked to heart disease.
A nudist resort in Connecticut adapted to the pandemic by:
a) Canceling a skeet shooting event
b) Requiring everyone to wear masks.
c) Sanitizing shuffleboard discs between plays.
d) All of the above.
Answers
1) c. Four trained dogs have been deployed at the Helsinki airport to offer free COVID sniff tests. It’s part of a study by University of Helsinki researchers, with the dogs delivering nearly 100% accuracy, even detecting asymptomatic cases.
2) d. The manager of Shanghai Maiyi Arts in Shanghai told Reuters he expected a boom in orders for Trump statues in the lead-up to the U.S. election, but instead orders have halted. Trump is the factory’s best-selling model in the U.S.
3) b. Doomscrolling, or obsessively checking social media and finding bad news, “is an evolutionary habit, as we like to familiarize ourselves with dangers in order to gain a sense of preparedness and control,” Dr. Patricia Celan, a psychiatry resident at Dalhousie University in Canada, told Healthline.
4) d. The coins, which had to be cleaned, were worth $8,563.71.
5) a. A study by European scientists examined genes linked to more severe cases of COVID and found they likely came from Neanderthals. That haplotype of gene is found in about 16% of Europe’s population and half the population in South Asia; it’s nonexistent in Africa and East Asia.
6) d. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Solair Recreation League, like many U.S. nudist resorts, now requires masks. Guests’ big complaint? Tan lines.
