BCL6 and influenza: COVID-19 is like other respiratory viral diseases such as influenza and infects and induces apoptosis of T lymphocytes to induce severe lymphopenia and impair lymphopoiesis partly due to a striking reduction in Bcl-6+ germinal center B cells that correlate with an early specific block in Bcl-6+ TFH cell differentiation associated with an increase in T-bet+ TH1 cells and aberrant extrafollicular TNF-α accumulation in the spleen and lymph nodes [4].