A characteristic of severe COVID-19 cases and of in vitro infected SARS-CoV-2 permissive respiratory epithelial cells is the highly impaired type I IFN release and response (with no IFN-β and low IFN-α production and activity detected), thus allowing and sustaining viral replication and an exacerbated inflammatory response [7,22]. The gene discussed is IFNA1; the disease is COVID-19.