L.A. is primed for disaster, but COVID-19 took it to another level

L.A. is primed for disaster, but COVID-19 took it to another level

“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.”