A. PBMCs from acute COVID-19 patients or healthy controls were cultured for 48 hours in media, rapamycin (100nM), VBIT-4 (300nM), or ZVAD (60nM). T cell survival was calculated as the percent CD4 or CD8 T cells remaining from initial plating. Significance tested using two-way ANOVA with each drug compared to the media control, n=9. B. T cells were stimulated with anti-CD3/CD28 (purple) for 48 hours and surviving T cells from COVID-19 patients are able to respond by upregulating HLA-DR, CD69, CD25 and GLUT1 to the same extent as healthy controls compared to unstimulated controls (grey). C. Graphical depiction of proposed mechanism of mitochondrial cell death signaling in COVID-19 T cells. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, and ****p < 0.0001