In our journal Progress in Immunology, a special issue is calling for papers about COVID-19.

Extensive research efforts have been made worldwide to decipher the immune response triggered during severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, to identify the drivers of severe and fatal COVID-19, and to understand what leads to prolonged symptoms after disease remission. SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the β-coronavirus family and shares extensive genomic identity with bat coronavirus suggesting that bats are the natural host. SARS-CoV-2 uses the same receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), as that for SARS-CoV, the coronavirus associated with the SARS outbreak in 2003. It mainly spreads through the respiratory tract with lymphopenia and cytokine storms occurring in the blood of subjects with severe disease. This suggests the existence of immunological dysregulation as an accompanying event during a severe illness caused by this virus. It has been shown that SARS-CoV-2 disrupts normal immune responses, leading to an impaired immune system and uncontrolled inflammatory responses in severe and critical patients with COVID-19.

In this special issue, we are willing to discuss new insights into the differences in immune responses in those with and without long COVID syndrome. We hope that the knowledge gained from this COVID-19 study will be applied to the study of the inflammatory processes involved in critical and chronic disease, which remains a major unmet need. Other related topics such as immune response to COVID-19, covid-19 pathophysiology are also welcome too.

the differences in immune responses in those with and without long COVID syndrome, the study of the inflammatory processes involved in critical and chronic disease, immune response to COVID-19, covid-19 pathophysiology, etc.