Table 1.

Strategies for resuming bariatric surgery.

	What patients?	Justification	Advantages	Risks	Needs for IC beds
Strategy 1 ‘Benefit outweighs risk’	Operate on patients whose need is high	Deterioration in health very probable within 6 months	Very high benefit if post-operative effects are simple	Some of these patients have the highest risk of complications	High
Strategy 2 ‘Safe and preventive’	Operate on patients with the least possible comorbidities	Reduces the number of patients with obesity on waiting lists for weight-loss surgery, so reducing the number of vulnerable patients	Benefits high but less than in Strategy 1	Patients are less at risk This strategy is not very realistic	Rare
Strategy 3 ‘SOFFCO guidelines’	Operate on patients whose need is high provided the risk of morbidity is very low	1/This metabolic surgery is the only effective treatement for obesity 2/Mitigates excess mortality linked to obesity	1/Very favourable benefit/risk ratio at both individual and public health scales 2/Reduction of comorbidities linked to obesity with less operating risk	Low	Rare