Published commentary on haemoglobin and COVID-19.

There was some recent interest in a preprint article which used computer modelling (but no experimental data) to propose that the COVID-19 virus ‘attacks’ haemoglobin in the blood of patients. The preprint has been the basis for claims that COVID-19 is not actually a lung disease. In response, the CIMR’s Prof. Randy Read has provided a follow-up critique in the same preprint repository which argues that from bioinformatic, thermodynamic and structural biology perspectives, the methods from the original article were fatally flawed. As a result, there is no reason to suspect that the virus attacks haemoglobin.