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The rounds of applause for the care-givers involved in the fight against Covid-19 are analysed in the light of the concept of group illusion developed by Didier Anzieu. The collective dimension of the pandemic supports the hypothesis of a massive and compulsive group experience. The rounds of applause are considered as a collective effort to create a group illusion that helps to cope with the anxieties mobilized by the situation. They also had the aim of thwarting the risk of an unfurling of violence at a time when the foundations of collective life seemed to be vacillating. Finally, they constituted a form of collective commitment not to reproach doctors for the triage decisions that they might have had to take. Group illusion only lasts for a certain time, however, and collectivities must now deal with the need to elaborate the recent events, particularly as the subsequent waves are bringing out into the open the tensions concealed by the groupal effort of the first weeks.