Likely unintended consequences of the management of the COVID-19 crisis include elevated risk for workers in low-paid, precarious and care-based employment, over-representation of minority ethnic groups in case numbers and fatalities, and gendered barriers to work. Drawing upon feminist ethics of care, this article theorises a radical alternative to the normative assumptions of rationalist crisis management. Rationalist approaches to crisis management are typified by utilitarian logics, and masculine and militaristic language. This article contributes a new theorization of crisis management that is grounded in feminist ethics to provide a care-based concern for all crisis affected people.