But no matter how severe, or far-reaching an epidemic may be, Olivarius says, "Human beings are very comfortable at saying, 'It's not happening in my backyard,

But no matter how severe, or far-reaching an epidemic may be, Olivarius says, "Human beings are very comfortable at saying, 'It's not happening in my backyard, therefore it's not affecting me.'" I feel like the modern age, with our flood of news access, has basically demonstrated why. It's a coping mechanism. There are simply far too many terrible things going on in the world at any given moment, for any one person be able to concern themselves with every one of them.