I just finished an analysis of the data from the local paper, and there has been no change in the trend of the number of obituary pages published per time interval, but...the newspaper cut off the start of old obituaries at the end of 2019, so there is no way to look at the trend prior to covid and post covid. Is this coincidental? This newspaper has had an online presence for about 20 years. They are definitely leftist in what they cover (mostly just reprinted stuff from AP and their parent, leftist news service), and it wouldn't surprise me if they saw the trend and decided they better cut it off the way they did.