Background/Question/Methods and Results/Conclusions In December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan, China. Since then the disease has spread across the world, leading to an ongoing pandemic that has killed, as of February 2021, more than 2.5 million people in the world, including more than half a million in the United States. COVID-19 has changed the world and lives of all people. Currently, mass vaccination programs have begun in several countries. It is hoped that much of the world population will be vaccinated against COVID-19 in next few years, and we could hope for a post-pandemic world and resume our “normal” lives. Will (or should) the post pandemic normal be like pre-pandemic normal? Have our lives permanently changed the way we live, we work, we study, we teach, we learn, we think, we behave and interact as society? COVID-19 has taught us several lessons and exposed the shortcomings of our socio-economic, ecological, and geopolitical systems. What have we learned from this pandemic and how we can use the lessons learned for creating a positive change and betterment of society? This presentation will discuss some important ecological and other lessons learned from the global pandemic over the past more than one year. We will discuss the kinds of knowledge and actions, including but not limited to applied ecological sciences, which may help us build back better or restore environment-society interactions, once the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 are lifted. A question at the heart of the discussion is if the goal of the post-pandemic recovery should be to restore “old normal”, which created the conditions for COVID-19 to flourish, or a “new normal” where societies and natural systems are resilient, fewer pathways exist for epidemiological catastrophes, and better informed and integrated policy responses are enabled.
