IL6 and COVID-19: Finally, lung tissue, in particular the alveolar cells type 2, of COVID-19 patients expressed increased senescence markers including p16INK that positively correlated with expression of pro-inflammatory mediators such as IL-1β and IL-6 compared with lung tissue of patients with pneumonia not correlated with SARS-CoV-2 infection; these data were also confirmed with an in vitro analysis using alveolar cells type 2 infected with SARS-CoV-2 [44].