The lack of expression of proinflammatory cytokines, including IL‐6, TNFa, and IL‐1 in SARS‐CoV‐2‐exposed PBMCs, is in line with the idea that these cytokines are mainly derived from the respiratory tract representing the site of productive infection, and it may partially explain the absence of lymphocyte depletion in our experimental setting that is observed in vivo (Huang et al, 2020; Qin et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2020a). The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is infection.