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Relying on capacity increases and patient transfers to deal with the huge and continuous inflow of COVID-19 critically ill patients is a strategy limited by finite human and logistical resources.

Prioritising both critical care initiation and continuation is paramount to save the greatest number of lives. It enables to allocate scarce resources in priority to those with the highest probability of benefiting from them. It is fully ethical provided it relies on objective and widely shared criteria, thus preventing arbitrary decisions and guaranteeing equity. Prioritisation seeks to fairly allocate treatments, maximise saved lives, gain indirect life benefits from prioritising exposed healthcare and similar workers, give priority to those most penalised as a last resort, and apply similar prioritisation schemes to all patients.

Prioritisation schemes and their criteria are adjusted to the level of resource scarcity …