IRF3 and COVID-19: However, a cross-comparison with published (pre-vaccine) transcriptomic22 and genomic28 signatures for fatal and life-threatening COVID-19 revealed a surprising dichotomy between IRF3-mediated IFN/antiviral signaling and IR7-mediated IFN/antiviral signaling, which our data suggest as ‘protective’ versus ‘deleterious’, respectively (Fig. 4).