Ethical reflection has been carried out at the national level by the National Consultative Ethics Committee ("Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique"), which provides advice toward guiding society and developing policies in the face of the ethical challenges such as those posed by the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. Additional operational recommendations have been put forward by the leading medical societies in France (FLMS) to assist practitioners with ongoing decision-making [4], [5], [6], [7]. These recommendations serve to remind everyone of the need to respect the critical and fundamental ethical principles that could be easily overlooked in a pandemic situation; these principles include respect for the dignity of all, non-maleficence, collegiality in all decisions and respect for the wishes and autonomy of each patient. All agree that the principle of distributive justice takes on an important role in this context, just as it is taken into account in everyday life apart from the stresses introduced by the pandemic. Decisions need to focus not only on the individual needs of a given patient, but also the good of society as a whole; this would include a focus on maximising the number of lives saved. If one is taking into account the number of years of life to be saved, as suggested by the American recommendations, patient age will of necessity become a major criterion with respect to decision-making. Indeed, the Italian Society for Intensive Care Medicine has put forward age thresholds for prioritising access to critical care [8].