This re-organization occurred abruptly, and many cardiac surgery units and cardiac ICU were requested to convert into COVID-19 units within a few days. However during this transitional phase, patients recovering from an operation in the hospital should be safely managed. Moreover, patients with a regular postoperative course should be discharged as quickly as possible and managed with out-patient care as soon as their physical condition allows. However, some patients with a complicated postoperative course requiring prolonged ICU hospitalization, on different modes of support [intra aortic balloon pump (IABP), continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (CVVH), tracheostomy, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy] are neither dischargeable nor transferrable into other ICUs. It should be noted that these kinds of patients have a very dismal prognosis, should they ultimately be infected with SARS-CoV-2. Consequently, it is reasonable to reserve 3–4 ICU beds, in a separate area of the hospital without any contact with the COVID-19 zone, which is dedicated to the management of chronically ill patients, already in hospital before the quarantine. Some OR facilities, that are shut down in such a situation, could be dedicated to this ‘Chronic ICU’, and progressively converted to available ICU beds when chronically ill cardiac patients recover, or die. As the vast majority of anaesthesiologists are involved in COVID-19 patients, cardiac surgeons should be involved in ward and chronic ICU management during this transitional phase.