In this article recently published in Science, the authors performed an integrated immune analysis on a cohort of 50 COVID-19 patients with various disease severity.
A unique phenotype was observed in severe and critical patients, consisting of a highly impaired interferon (IFN) type I response (characterized by no IFN-β and low IFN-α production and activity), associated with a persistent blood viral load and an exacerbated inflammatory response. Inflammation was partially driven by the transcriptional factor NF-κB and characterized by increased tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-6 production and signalling. These data suggest that type-I IFN deficiency in the blood could be a hallmark of severe COVID-19 and provide a rationale for combined therapeutic approaches.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/07/10/science.abc6027