This activated state of CD8+ T cells was consistently present across studies, with reports of immune profiling in BALF samples from COVID-19 patients, which showed increased CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the lungs in both mild and severe cases along with the increased expression of CD8+ T cell cytolytic genes like GZMA and GZMK (Liao et al., 2020). Here, CD8A is linked to COVID-19.