Pie charts show the minor allele frequency at rs35044562.
Source: The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals
Frequency data were obtained from the 1000 Genomes Project"22.
Map source data were obtained from OpenStreetMap23
Frequency data were obtained from the 1000 Genomes Project"22.
Map source data were obtained from OpenStreetMap23
Creationist mode: 
Typical of evolutionary biologists, scientists are trying to lay the blame for some people's susceptibility to severe forms of COVID-19 in response to infection by the SARS-VoV-2 virus at the door of Neanderthals. Neanderthals are alleged to have interbred with early modern humans and passed on some of the genes to those of us who are descended from the results of these encounters.
As any intelligent [sic] design creationists will tell you, however, modern humans were created as is just a few thousand years ago complete with the genes that convey this susceptibility, provided by the designer in full and certain knowledge of what it would mean once it had created the SARS-CoV-2 virus - er… because it loves us.
Creationist mode: 
At least that's the line of reasoning ID Creationists would be following if only they were honest enough and consistent enough to follow their argument through to its logical conclusion. However, their normal response is to claim that, whilst their putative creator god is the only entity capable of creating anything and so created everything, it only deserves the credit for the good things while someone or something else is to blame for all the bad things like viruses and genes that cause things like susceptibility to a severe form of COVID-19.
I almost fell off my chair because the segment of DNA was exactly the same as in the Neanderthal genome.
Meanwhile, back in the grown-up world of real science, where evidence, not wishful thinking, is king, Hugo Zeberg of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, have shown how a genetic cluster on Homo sapiens Chromosome 3, which had previously been identified as a risk locus for developing severe respiratory failure following infection with SARS-CoV-2, is part of a segment of around 50 kilobases of DNA that was inherited from Neanderthals.Hugo Zeberg, Co-author
Assistant professor
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden
(Quoted in the Guardian)
Assistant professor
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden
(Quoted in the Guardian)
These genes, which can triple the risk of dying from COVID-19, are carried by about 16% of Europeans and 50% of South Asians, rising to 63% of Bangladeshis. This finding is consistent with the fact that people of Bangladeshi origin in the UK have twice the risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to people of European origin.
The Neanderthal genes we carry today are those which were not rapidly eliminated from our genomes because they conveyed some beneficial characteristics on H. sapiens as we migrated out of Africa and into an environment in which Neanderthals had evolved. These included an enhanced immune system enabling us to cope with the new diseases we were to come into contact with and in the presence of which Neanderthals had been living and for some 250,000 years.
However, this former benefit may now be proving detrimental in the presence of this new coronavirus, producing a potentially dangerous over-reaction in our immune system, although the details of how the Neanderthal genes cause this increased susceptibility are yet to be discovered.
This finding appears on the face of it to contradict a finding by the same researchers in March 2021 which reported that Neanderthal genes could be protective against severe COVID-19 illness, giving about 22% reduction in severe illness. However, this genetic cluster is on Chromosome 12 and is widely distributed outside Africa, compared to that on Chromosome 3. This protective gene is associated with the body's response to infection by RNA viruses and there is evidence that it has increased in the population in two bursts: one between 20 and 10 thousand years ago and again about 1000 years ago.
From the point of view of an ID Creationists, of course, the only way to interpret these findings is that their putative creator god just doesn't know what it's doing or what its purpose is - never a good starting point for a designer who is supposedly intelligent. There are two different sets of genes; one of which makes the virus more dangerous and another which makes it a little less dangerous. And this is part of the defence system this supposed intelligent designer designed to protect us against the organisms it created to make us sick!
How on Earth adults can continue to believe in this ill-thought-out intelligent [sic] design hoax, in the face of the information this pandemic is exposing about how a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 changes over time and how our immune system is not fit for purpose and has flaws in it that a virus can drive a metaphorical coach and horses through, beggars belief. As one of the daftest ideas since the idea of a dome over a flat Earth, it should have been consigned to the trashcan of history as soon as it was unleashed on an ignorant and gullible public.
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