IRF7 and COVID-19: Although a relationship between rare variants in these type I IFN genes and critical COVID-19 is plausible given the importance of intact type I IFN signalling in the anti-SARS-CoV-2 host immune response and the corroboration by some additional cases, four larger, independent studies failed to replicate the enrichment of variants in the TLR3 and IRF7-pathway in patients with critical COVID-19 [35, 49, 50, 55].