Choi et al., 2017. A recent study found that low concentrations of IFN-β can significantly inhibit Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (Mantlo et al., 2020). This provides a new opportunity to treat Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is currently causing a global outbreak. SARS-CoV-2, the causative pathogen of COVID-19, is a single-stranded RNA-type β-coronavirus for which there is currently no specific antiviral drug or vaccine (Yang et al., 2020). The gene discussed is IFNB1; the disease is COVID-19.