Will coronavirus change the way we talk about death?

Every generation has an event that defines it. For my father, it was the Second World War. For his father, the First World War. Some might have thought Brexit would have been ours, but the coronavirus pandemic puts politics into perspective. There is no doubt that 2020 will be viewed by historians in the same way 1918 is now: as the year of the plague. Tens of thousands have died and the death toll continues to rise sharply. The global economy is in tatters. The world is in lockdown. But if any good can come from coronavirus it might be in the way in which we come to think – and talk – about death. It’s been said that in Britain today we view death in the way Victorians did sex; as one of life’s great unmentionables. Might our current predicament change that?

The pandemic has certainly changed some things for the better. When coronavirus first took hold in Britain, the speed with which the sometimes sclerotic and glacial apparatus of the NHS moved rapidly into preparing for the coming onslaught was something to behold.