KEAP1 and COVID-19: Host genetics also matter: in Mexican COVID-19 pneumonia, NFE2L2 rs2364723 (C>G) showed a protective association against severe disease, while variants in its repressor partner KEAP1 associated with more aggressive courses; more broadly, functional NRF2 promoter SNPs (rs6721961, rs6706649, rs35652124) modulate NRF2 expression and have been tied to disease risk in other oxidative-stress phenotypes, providing biologic plausibility for prognostic use in COVID-19 (Olagnier et al., 2020; Qu et al., 2023).