Let Inga Tell You: A quiz for the COVID-weary

Jan. 24, 2022 9 AM PT

Here is Inga’s COVID Quiz for 2022:

If the first three major variants of COVID-19 were named Alpha, Delta and Omicron from the Greek alphabet, what might the next one be called?

(a) Sigma Chi

(b) Nancy Pi-losi

(d) Oy-mega

(d) Bob

Which of the following phrases is not associated with COVID-19?

(a) “Follow the science.”

(b) “When will you be getting more masks/hand sanitizer/test kits?”

(d) “He was hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

(e) “Your flight is canceled.”

Pre-pandemic, if you knew what you know now, you would:

(a) Have invested your retirement funds in toilet paper futures and COVID home test kits

(b) Taken a cruise before that now-beleaguered industry goes belly up

(c) Have realized in March 2020 that even your dearest friends and closest family members would have happily bought the last roll of toilet paper out from under you

(d) Have relished leaving the house without a mask steaming up your vision

(e) Not have said, “Don’t worry, there’s no way they’re going to close schools.”

Which of the following has not been put forth as a treatment for COVID-19?

(a) Ivermectin anti-parasitic medicine

(b) Consuming household bleach

(d) Drinking your own urine

(e) Advil (actual correct answer)

N95 is:

(a) The highway from Nebraska to Nome

(b) The winning number on your bingo card

(c) A surgical mask that scratches the skin off your nose but reduces your risk of COVID and similar airborne afflictions

(d) The area that includes Zimbabwe on a world atlas

(e) The successful torpedoing of your opponent’s aircraft carrier in Battleship

People opposed to COVID vaccines consider them:

(a) A plot developed by the U.S. government to insert teeny-weeny microchips in citizens for the purpose of mind control

(b) Based on “science,” which is a code word for depriving people of their civil rights and keeping them from congregating in large maskless crowds

(d) Useless, because vaccinated people got Omicron anyway, even though they didn’t get very sick from it, so, seriously, why bother?

(e) The fault of some people far, far away, one of whom decided to ingest a bat (#definitelyacaseforgoingvegan)

(f) A good idea just before being hooked up to a ventilator

In your own household, you:

(a) Will invite into your home only people who gave you birth

(b) Have no clue what “family groupings” means

(d) Stick pins into dolls of the Zoom creator

(e) Could not have imagined in your worst dreams that you saved all those years to pay $50,000 for your college student to be learning remotely at your dining room table

Your community interactions involve:

(a) Frequently checking in with neighbors, offering love and COVID test kits (#bringingoutthebestinpeople)

(b) Appointing yourself Chief of COVID Police and posting regular rants on your neighborhood social media about perceived non-compliance (#bringingouttheworstinpeople)

(c) Getting very, very mad at anyone who makes the teeniest joke about COVID-19, since it is a Very Serious Matter Not to Be Joked About Ever

(d) Wondering if you’ll ever eat indoors at a restaurant again, and not just because of those unscannable QR codes taped to the tables (#willingtoriskitallforanactualmenu)

We will know the pandemic is over when:

(a) Dr. Fauci says so

(b) Conversations occur when the words “tested” and “vaccinated” never come up

(d) The evening news does not lead with COVID data

(e) Your elementary school-age great-grandkids visit you in the nursing home for help doing a report on something called COVID that apparently was a very big deal in the early 2020s

(f) (see e) You know you’ve heard the term but can’t quite place it

Your COVID prevention plan includes:

(a) Wearing a mask as mandated by law

(b) Wearing a mask to water plants in your secluded backyard

(d) Making the dog wear a mask

(e) Not leaving your bedroom since March 2020 and subsisting on beef jerky and tap water

Inga’s lighthearted looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at inga47@san.rr.com. ◆