The emergency situation in Italy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has also changed the way of treating patients requiring cardiac surgery. The Lombardy regional government recently introduced new rules on how to reorganize hospitals by creating 4 hubs for adult and 1 for paediatric cardiac surgery, which will handle all emergency/urgent cases (∼150–200 cases/month). This situation has never happened before in the modern era and obviously represents a challenge in terms of rapidity and effectiveness of the actions needed.