Abstract This article aims to reflect on the ethical dilemmas faced by health professionals, patients and family members during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic raised ethical issues in health caused by the lack of material and human resources and the fear of the unknown. Patients and family members were also affected by social distancing in hospitalization and mourning. Health profissionals faced ethical dilemmas that raise questions about the duty to assist patients and the guarantee of personal safety, dealing with the challenge of acting ethically amid work overload and insecurity of the context. The family and patients face a scenario of adaptation of health care with the lack of technologies that allow feelings of care in the face of the need for distancing, including in the process of farewell rituals of the late. Investments in health can thus drive changes in care, in compliance with social justice and respect for human dignity.