  The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has added new urgency to the study of viral
mechanisms of infection. But while vaccines offer a measure of protection
against this specific outbreak, a new era of pandemics has been predicted. In
addition to this, COVID-19 has drawn attention to post-viral syndromes and the
healthcare burden they entail. It seems integral that knowledge of viral
mechanisms is increased through as wide a research field as possible. To this
end we propose that quantum biology might offer essential new insights into the
problem, especially with regards to the important first step of virus-host
invasion. Research in quantum biology often centres around energy or charge
transfer. While this is predominantly in the context of photosynthesis there
has also been some suggestion that cellular receptors such as olfactory or
neural receptors might employ vibration assisted electron tunnelling to augment
the lock-and-key mechanism. Quantum tunnelling has also been observed in enzyme
function. Enzymes are implicated in the invasion of host cells by the
SARS-CoV-2 virus. Receptors such as olfactory receptors also appear to be
disrupted by COVID-19. Building on these observations we investigate the
evidence that quantum tunnelling might be important in the context of infection
with SARS-CoV-2. We illustrate this with a simple model relating the vibronic
mode of, for example, a viral spike protein to the likelihood of charge
transfer in an idealised receptor. Our results show a distinct parameter regime
in which the vibronic mode of the spike protein enhances electron transfer.
With this in mind, novel therapeutics to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission could
potentially be identified by their vibrational spectra.
