NFKB1 and COVID-19: One mechanism to explain the “cytokine storm” associated with COVID-19 is that SARS-CoV-2 pathogen-associated molecular patterns trigger IL-6 production followed by hyper-activation of the NF-κB pathway in both immune and non-immune cells, culminating in the establishment of the IL-6 amplifier inflammatory circuit (Hojyo et al., 2020).