Although we could not detect ACE2 in our set of tissue samples, we did also observe a trend towards higher abundance of cathepsins (both B and L) as well as S100 inflammatory mediators in COVID-19 lungs (including S100A8, 9, 11, 12 and P, as reported by [39]) (Additional file 3: Table S2). This evidence concerns the gene ACE2 and COVID-19.