Couch Competition: Pandemics, Epidemics and Diseases

Couch Competition: Pandemics, Epidemics and Diseases
The longest and most hazardous stretch of the 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska was covered by Norwegian Leonhard Seppala and his dog team, led by Togo. The 2019 Disney Plus film “Togo,” starring Willem Dafoe, tells the story (poster below).

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Whitman County Librarian Sarah Phelan ran trivia nights at area bars and restaurants in Colfax, St. John and other towns around the county. During the stay-at-home order, she’s bringing the questions to Inland 360 readers.

If you want to test your skills against others, visit the Whitman County Library Facebook page at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays for her live trivia challenge.


  1. Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, administered the world’s first vaccination in 1796 as a preventative treatment for what disease?


  1. The Black Death, the deadliest pandemic of bubonic plague, killed up to 60 percent of Europe’s population. In what century did the Black Death occur?


  1. Twenty mushers and more than 150 dogs took part in the 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska. The Great Race of Mercy was a race against the outbreak of which epidemic?


  1. The MMR vaccine inoculates against what three diseases?


  1. What bacterial disease is commonly referred to as lockjaw, even though lockjaw is only a symptom of that disease?

-- Inland 360

Answers:


  1. Smallpox   2. 1300s/14th century  3. Diphtheria 4. Measles, mumps, rubella  5. Tetanus