Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been referred to as the “silent epidemic” but given its substantial and recurring impact on global health, it should be renamed to the “silent pandemic”. The COVID-19 pandemic has majorly impacted biomedical research of TBI; experimental and clinical studies have either slowed or halted and resources have been reallocated, thus resulting in a “lost year” for the TBI field. However, the pandemic can serve as an inflection point. The conceptual and technical lessons that can be learned from COVID-19 and could lead to clearer classification, improved diagnosis, and potentially improved treatment efficacy of TBI are presented in this paper.