Judicious use of incentive spirometry in resource limited times of COVID-19 pandemic

While large-scale randomized control trials are underway to determine the risk vs. benefit of drugs and other therapeutic interventions, even seemingly benign therapeutic interventions, such as IS should be critically appraised due to the issues surrounding healthcare worker exposure and PPE utilization. Even in this patient population, various clinical trials have reported a lack of benefit in preventing mortality and post-op complications [4]. COVID -19 is a multisystemic disease and has a complex interplay of multiple factors that determine mortality. Since IS does not provide a benefit against respiratory decline, we postulate that no mortality benefit should be seen, even in larger population based studies.