L.A. is primed for disaster, but COVID-19 took it to another level
Denise Martinez of Costa Mesa kneels in prayer in front of the closed Huntington Beach Pier in April.(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
LA Times | March 11, 2021
“It’s the horrendous loss of life, the horrendous loss of livelihood, and the symbolic losses as well,” said Roxane Cohen Silver, a [psychological science professor at UC Irvine who studies how people respond to collective crises. … The experience of crisis upon crisis was so universal that Silver and her colleagues came up with a name for it. “We call it cascading collective trauma,” she said. “It’s almost too much to bear.” … Silver’s work has also shown that there is still reason to be hopeful. … “We will come out the other side, and I believe that people will be quite resilient,” Silver said. “But that doesn’t minimize the tremendous loss.” [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]