Although we cannot completely rule out that treatment with these immunosuppressive drugs may have altered the analysis of the cytotoxic response, we have to consider first, that hospitalized patients with critical COVID-19 still showed higher levels of cytotoxic cells such as CD8 and NK cells than patients with mild disease, and second, that PBMCs from hospitalized patients who were not treated with corticoids also showed an impaired cytotoxic response. This evidence concerns the gene CD8A and COVID-19.