Covid-19 has 'fundamentally changed the fabric of funerals' as many turn to virtual events

September 30, 2020

Covid-19 has changed the way we live, but it's also changed the way we deal with death.

A New Zealand-owned online platform is helping grieving families and friends connect by providing a place for virtual funerals.

Covid-19 has changed the way people live, but it has also changed the way death is dealt with.

Physical attendance at funerals and tangihanga has become impossible for many. 

OneRoom has already live streamed and recorded funeral services and memorials for hundreds of thousands of people, and the need is growing.

It operates across four countries - New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada.

The company's average online viewers skyrocketed from 9800 in February, to 165,000 last month. 

OneRoom CEO Dave Lutterman says Covid-19 has "fundamentally changed the fabric of funerals".

"When Covid-19 happened and the Center for Disease Control over there [the United States] announced that if you're going to run any funerals, you're going to need to live stream them, that certainly piqued interest in the product we were putting out to the markets," he told TVNZ1's Seven Sharp.

"I think people are going to continue to be concerned about travelling, they're going to be concerned about gathering." 

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