Numerous studies have already shown increased levels of IL6 and CXCL8 due to diesel exhaust or particulate matter exposure in primary respiratory cells (Iwanaga et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2015; Xian et al., 2020; Zarcone et al., 2016), but not in the context of viral infections as reported in our study. Here, CXCL8 is linked to viral infectious disease.