Corona, met de ‘d’ van dood

In this article I explore the way people have dealt with death during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a file with newspaper articles, tweets, Facebook posts, books, online stories and interviews I trace cultural patterns or so-called death mentalities, with a focus on the situation in the Netherlands. The theoretical framework is based on both Ariès’ and Jacobsen’s characteristics of different ways of dealing with death. These cultural patterns concern both ideas and practices. A tentative conclusion is that on the one hand there is denial of death, on the other hand the ritual changes indicate a protest against death by corona.