Support for indirect over direct causes of neurological symptoms:

• Cerebralspinal fluid (CSF) samples in some CoV-2 patients have shown the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (anti-S1 IgM) and increased multiple cytokines, suggesting a possible CoV-2 direct infection of the CNS (Benameur et. al). However, this coupled with low levels of CSF and plasma viral RNA in patients, suggests that the neurological symptoms present may be a result of autoimmune responses, rather than direct infection.

Support for autoimmunity:

• the anti-neuronal and anti-glial autoantibodies presence in CSF and serum lends support of a causal relationship between autoimmunity and neurological clinical symptoms (Franke et. al)
• transcriptomic data from COVID-19 patients, control samples, and mice studies, reveal evidence of virus-driven cell lysis (Ray et. al)