Patients with recessive and complete deficiencies in TLR7, IRF7, or the type I IFN receptor (heterodimeric IFNAR, encoded by IFNAR1 and IFNAR2) have impaired type I IFN immunity and are at risk of life-threatening viral infections, including COVID-19 pneumonia (Campbell et al., 2022; Hernandez et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2022). The gene discussed is IFNAR1; the disease is viral infectious disease.