Indeed, TLR3 deficiency was initially reported in patients with herpes simplex encephalitis (Guo et al., 2011; Jouanguy et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2007b), but patients with TLR3 deficiency were progressively found to be prone to other viral diseases too, including critical influenza pneumonia (Bucciol et al., 2022b; Kyung Lim et al., 2019), other types of viral encephalitis (Chen et al., 2021; Hautala et al., 2020; Kuo et al., 2022; Partanen et al., 2020), and hypoxemic COVID-19 pneumonia (Zhang et al., 2020b). This evidence concerns the gene TLR3 and viral load.