It is the protease that sheds various cytokines and their receptors from immune cells, including the cytokine TNFα (Black et al, 1997; Moss et al, 1997, 2008; Peschon et al, 1998; Horiuchi et al, 2007; Dreymueller et al, 2015; Zunke & Rose‐John, 2017; Hsia et al, 2019; Calligaris et al, 2021), which is also increased during the cytokine storm in severe forms of COVID‐19 and correlates with viral load in patients and with mortality in animal models (Catanzaro et al, 2020; Del Valle et al, 2020; Lucas et al, 2020; Karki et al, 2021). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is COVID-19.