CXCL8 and COVID-19: Other studies have linked increased cytokine and chemokine levels with greater disease severity in SARS-CoV-2 infections and have noted associations of heightened IL-7 with chronic inflammatory conditions, IL-8 with lung hyperinflammation and prolonged disease in severe COVID-19 cases, and overrepresented VEGF-A in the pulmonary tissue of COVID-19 fatalities [77,78,79,80].