Could stem cells improve the outcome of ARDS in severe COVID-19? The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been associated with hundreds of millions of hospitalizations and over 3.2 million deaths since it first emerged in late-2019. While the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) results mostly in asymptomatic or mild disease, in about 15% of cases, patients become moderately or severely sick. A recent study, published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine, explores the safety and efficacy of stem cells, which have been touted as the panacea for a wide range of illnesses, ranging from chronic degenerative conditions to cancer. The severity of COVID-19 in some patients seems to be due to a hyper-inflammatory state resulting from a dysregulated immune response. This is characterized by a cytokine storm and immunologically-mediated clots. A distressing and often fatal complication of critical COVID-19 is acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), frequently associated with multi-organ dysfunction.