  We are in the midst of a global viral pandemic, one with no cure and a high
mortality rate. The Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) gene complex plays a critical
role in host immunity. We predicted HLA class I and II alleles from the
transcriptome sequencing data prepared from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid
samples of five patients at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. We
identified the HLA-I allele A*24:02 in four out of five patients, which is
higher than the expected frequency (17.2%) in the South Han Chinese population.
The difference is statistically significant with a p-value less than $10^{-4}$.
Our analysis results may help provide future insights on disease
susceptibility.
