Great article reviewsCOV19 mechanisms

Usk wrote: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/why-some-covid-19-cases-are-worse-than-others-67160

Thank you for this reference, which says:

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, some people—especially the elderly and sick—may have dysfunctional immune systems that fail to keep the response to particular pathogens in check. This could cause an uncontrolled immune response, triggering an overproduction of immune cells and their signaling molecules and leading to a cytokine storm often associated with a flood of immune cells into the lung. “That’s when you end up with a lot of these really severe inflammatory disease conditions like pneumonia, shortness of breath, inflammation of the airway, and so forth,” says Rasmussen. 

Local inflammation can turn into widespread inflammation of the lungs, which then has ripple effects across all organs of the body. This could also happen if the virus replicates faster than the immune system can respond, so that it then has to play catch-up to contain the pathogen—a situation that could also cause the immune defense to spiral out of control. “With mice, we know that in some cases, particularly for SARS and MERS coronaviruses, virus replication is very rapid and in some cases overwhelming” to the immune system, says Perlman.  

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One way to reduce mortality during fulminant infection would be to repress the cytokine storm, which involves release of immune chemicals such as Interluken-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor from the patient's immune cells.  Very conventional biologic drugs such as Enbrel, Humira, etc. may possibly save thousands of lives if administered early.  Please see this key article in Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30858-8/fulltext

With more than 81 000 deaths worldwide from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by April 8, 2020,