Safety and efficacy of tracheostomy in COVID-19 patients: a preliminary retrospective study of 14 casesKeypointsThe outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, since December, 2019, has become a pandemic.This highly infectious disease increases the risk of converting to acute progressive respiratory failure, which needs the treatment with invasive mechanical ventilation, including tracheostomy.Up to now, there is no data describing tracheostomy cases in COVID-19 pandemic.we retrospectively analyzed 14 cases of critically ill COVID-19 patients with tracheostomy, concentrating on surgical indication, complication, procedure and precaution.Bedside open tracheostomy in COVID-19 patients is a relatively safe procedure for skilled surgeons under appropriate precautions, and the critically ill patients may benefit from it.Introduction The outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic. It has been reported that in an early study, about 20% COVID-19 hospitalized patients developed into acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and required invasive mechanical ventilation.1 For some patients on prolonged intubation, tracheostomy may be considered as an important option for optimal respiratory care. Although recent several articles described the principles and procedures of tracheostomy on COVID-19 patients,2,3 there is no data describing tracheostomy cases in COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed 14 cases of COVID-19 patients with tracheostomy in [removed for blind peer review], the only designated hospital which still has a dozen intubated patients in [removed for blind peer review], concentrating on surgical indication, complication, procedure and precaution.