When this came up for discussion on HN a few days ago, I was initially confused, as some of what I read seemed to suggest that taking e.g. lisinopril could possibly increase the risk of an infection because it seems to increase the expression of ACE2 receptors that are used by the virus to infect cells.
On the other hand, some of what I read seemed to suggest that ACE inhibitors (e.g. lisinopril) could have a therapeutic benefit. The virus is going to inactivate a bunch of ACE2 receptors through the course of infection. Since ACE2 receptors inactivate angiotensin, that would leave a lot of active angiotensin floating around, which is potentially very bad. ACE inhibitors would seem to help here because they inhibit the active form of angiotensin from being created in the first place.
Now I'm wondering: Is it possible that taking lisinopril could increase the risk of serious infection for those of us not yet infected, but also could reduce the severity of an active infection?