As in all disasters, the days following are as unbearable and frustrating as when the disaster was raging. When disaster is at its most menacing and dangerous, instinct and adrenaline take over with hardly any time for analysis or controlled judgment and decision making. What matters is surviving from one moment to the next. Wars and natural disasters are usually that. An explosion here, another one there, or perhaps a sudden huge wave or earthquake that kills multitudes and ravages the landscape in seconds.

The COVID-19 pandemic was nowhere near the noise and panic reactions, stampedes, and confused wandering, mangled victims, and wailing victims common in disasters. The world was dealing with a silent, efficient killer. Nobody knows where it is coming from or who the next victim will be. Everybody was vulnerable. Mostly misunderstood and unknown when it first struck, it brought the world to a standstill and changed how people lived, worked, played, and interacted. There was a deadly, eerie uncertainty that brought fear and sadness. There was actual loss of lives and while damage to physical structures was not pronounced, the psychological distress was just as devastating.

Recovering from a disaster, of which COVID-19 is one, involves rehabilitation work, mostly of infrastructures and other physical facilities at tremendous cost. Nations and organizations untouched by these disasters, or who can afford it, are always quick to lend a helping hand to those who suffered the most. The recovery efforts after the two world wars and many other disasters are prime examples. COVID-19, however, spread throughout the world, wreaking havoc to the low and the mighty of nations, without distinction. Despite initial selfishness and hesitation, the nations who can, soon shared resources and talent to combat the pandemic. COVID-19 did not flatten buildings, cut communications lines, or disrupted public utilities and infrastructures. Dams, bridges, railways, and airports are still intact. Yet the damage is just as painful and lasting because it seeped into the inner core of human feelings and existence. The cost will never be subject to exact determination, but the psychological, emotional, and social dimensions of human existence have changed forever. There is talk of a new normal, a subtle way of admitting that life will never be as before.

Surely, there will be rehabilitation efforts in one way or another, not of the physical sort, but more challenging and uncertain in terms of approach, objectives, and reliability of results. That is the challenge for everyone in the post-pandemic world – to think, design, implement, and measure efforts to bring back normalcy in its simplest form, one that would bring hope and enthusiasm for the future, and heal the wounds of the past. It is still too early to speculate what kind of remembrance or commemorative events the future holds for the days of the pandemic. Will there be a monument like the tomb of the unknown soldier, or commemorative events and parades like the D-Day celebrations? Will there be monuments to victories and fallen heroes? About whom and for whom? New ways of remembrance could come to mind, something befitting the stealth and deathly efficiency of COVID-19. Can there be a V-C Day, just as there was a V-E or V-J Day.

What is clear is that COVID-19 was different, to be remembered and to recover from differently. The only constant is the world’s ability to learn from lessons of the past. At the individual level, every person surely has lessons learned and should be able to make changes in his or her life to make the future better. Institutions like schools and businesses should do the same. Their biggest mistake would be to go back to where they were ignoring the changes they were forced to adopt during the pandemic. None is worse than hearing administrators and politicians insisting on face-to-face classes simply because the pandemic is over. Forward-looking schools and companies are reviewing experiences during the pandemic with the intention of institutionalizing certain arrangements and structures, not because of the pandemic but because they made sense. Work-from-home, blended learning and other structural changes that may have been forced moves during the pandemic should not be discarded just because the threat is over. That would be the worst post-pandemic posture for any organization or person. Yet some people never learn.