Funerals post pandemic

[pontipinemum]

I have a funeral this weekend and I am not sure what the new protocol is. My SIL will be minding DS so I am trying to figure out a rough time line, it's a 3 hour drive too.

Church is at 10am, burial is a good walk nearly 3 km (and they do want to walk), then burial, and back to hotel for tea/ sandwiches.

I think mass will be an hour, walk up will be nearly another hour, burial 30mins. Then we will stay for an hour at the hotel.

But I am not sure, do families still wait around after the mass to shake hands, is that gone? That was what happened when I was part of the 'chief mourners' but that was before pandemic.

Our experience is that funerals are back to pre-Covid status. People do still stand around to shake hands and go to the hotel.

Funerals are exactly as they were pre Covid here. We are rural if that makes a difference.

Pretty much back to pre covid standards, I've been ro both rural and urban funerals in the last six months and the hand shaking, standing around etc was all taking place. On the other hand my 80 year old father keeps his distance if he attends one, doesn't go for the meal any more and tends to avoid hand shaking but he developed respiratory problems recently so he's very careful, you might notice less elderly there than years ago particularly with talks of a new variant but overall back to normal.

Yes I think they are back to normal, as @Doggydarling says maybe fewer elderly people but some I know are loving the option of watching funerals online. My mother who is not that old watches masses and funerals all the time!

It's an uncles funeral btw so I will stay for all of it, for a friends relative I'd usually just go to the church. I think if the hand shaking after mass is back I will add another hour before we set off for the grave yard.

Ye are right about older people avoiding crowds, my aunt in her late 70s went to pay respects privately and won't be going to the funeral.

Rural ish town, about 7/8 thousand live in the there.

Yes the mingling outside the church is definitely back. We had a family funeral recently and I met people outside the church I hadn't seen in years. Definitely massive changes around here with funerals in general, lots of cremations and lots now with just the funeral mass and no removal the night before and a neighbour of my parents had a direct cremation with their wishes that there was to be no death notices etc which is very unusual around here .