When the first wave of COVID-19 ravaged the world in 2020, we made a call for a special issue of Human Remains and Violence to document early experiences and reflections on the management of those who died from the virus. In hot spots of the pandemic in particular, the sudden surge in numbers of dead bodies overwhelmed often under-resourced and unprepared institutions of death care; new protocols of management of potentially infected dead bodies changed the usual procedures of forensic and funerary institutions and inhibited customary rituals of separation for relatives and friends of the deceased. Blatant cases of crisis and emergency measures and lack of death care hit the media on a global scale and created outrage and debates about the dignified management and disposal of dead bodies. Luckily, we received a very enthusiastic response to the call for papers, and the journal decided to publish two special issues on the pandemic, of which this is the second (see vol. 7.2 for the first special issue).