AGT and acute respiratory distress syndrome: In relation to phase 2 of the disease, i.e., ARDS induction and the alarming “cytokine storm” (Fig. 2a) which can then lead to systemic failure (see above), the ANG(1–7) peptide (or non-peptide analogs) can likely rescue local SARS-CoV-2 infection-related ACE2 loss and the subsequent ANGII accumulation, leading to reactivation of the anti-inflammatory MASR signaling pathway (Fig. 1).