Inflammatory status of study patients. (A) Lymphocyte count in whole blood from severe COVID-19 (n = 30) and non–COVID-19 patients (n = 16; the lymphocyte count of one patient was not determined) on day 1 after admission. Individuals and means ± SEM are depicted. Dashed line represents the threshold for lymphopenia. Mann–WhitneyU test. (B) SOFA score of COVID-19 (n = 30) and non–COVID-19 (n = 17) patients. Individuals and means ± SEM are shown. Mann–Whitney U test.(C) Spearman’s rank correlation of SOFA and lymphocyte counts in COVID-19 patients. (D) Levels of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-1RA, and IFN-α2 in the plasma of healthy donors (n = 20) and COVID-19 (n = 30) and non–COVID-19 (n = 16) patients. Individuals and means ± SEM are shown. Kruskal–Wallis test with Dunn's multiple comparisons test.(E) Levels of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-1RA, and IFN-α2 in the plasma and ETA supernatants of matched COVID-19 patients (n = 20). Paired individual values are shown. Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test. (F) Comparison of airway levels of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-1RA, and IFN-α2 in ETA supernatants of COVID-19 (n = 20) and non–COVID-19 (n = 7) patients. Mann–Whitney U test. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.