In contrast women, children, and non-smokers display DNA hypermethylation and lower expression of ACE2 and interferon proteins, and as a consequence show better protection to SARS-CoV-2 as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic (Holmes et al., 2019; Pinto et al., 2020), which is in full concordance with the process of epigenetic aging (Jones et al., 2015). The gene discussed is ACE2; the disease is COVID-19.