IL6 and COVID-19: Two sentinel cytokines associated with this “cytokine storm” in COVID-19, IL-6 and IL-1B, are expressed by not only immune cells but also by the airway epithelium itself (Hastie et al., 1996; Stríz et al., 1999; Nagarkar et al., 2012; Martinez-Nunez et al., 2014; Jevnikar et al., 2019).