the impact of COVID-19

The impact of COVID-19 was devastating, causing more than seven million deaths globally, and the number of fatalities continues to rise (Worldometer, 2024). As of May 22, 2024, in Aotearoa, 5,697 people had died from the pandemic, including 585 Māori (Whatuora, 2024). This was equal to about one Māori for every ten non-Māori — a significant reversal of the death rate of more than eight Māori dying for every one non-Māori from the Spanish influenza pandemic a century earlier (Rice, 2011).

Aotearoa put stringent measures in place to restrict the movement of people and prohibited tangihanga. As public funerals around the globe were banned, there was an explosion of live streaming as people turned to technology to fulfil mourning rituals and share grief in isolation. However, detailed instructions on how to set up live streams were lacking — arranging virtual memorials posed significant challenges to whānau dealing with death and technology at the same time.

Throughout these challenges, Public Health Physician Dr Elana Curtis argued that the government's enforcement of tangihanga guidelines was overly restrictive, stating: "They are limiting the ability to conduct tikanga and tangihanga processes and they're not coming from a public health evidence-based perspective" (Tyson, 2020, para. 5). Wairarapa resident Irihapeti Roberts set up a petition against the ten-person limit as her grandmother was near death and sought to safely plan for her tangi (McLachlan, 2020).

Māori were not asking to ignore public health. They were asking to be trusted to uphold tikanga safely. That distinction matters.