The negligible induction of any ISGs in HBV-infected Wt HepG2-NTCP cells is consistent with earlier reports describing HBV as a “stealth” virus that does not induce IFN responses in chimpanzees (Wieland et al, 2004), acutely infected patients (Dunn et al, 2009; Stacey et al, 2009), or in vitro infection models (Cheng et al, 2017; Niu et al, 2017; Mutz et al, 2018). This evidence concerns the gene IFNA1 and infection.