You will be shown a claim related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the abstract of a biomedical research paper. Each sentence from the abstract will be on a separate line. Your task is to return a JSON object with two fields:

- "verdict": The fact-checking verdict. If the information in the abstract supports the claim, write "SUPPORT". If the abstract contradicts the claim, write "CONTRADICT".
- "evidence": An array of sentences providing evidence for the verdict. Please copy all relevant sentences verbatim from the abstract.

For instance, if the model were given the claim "the COVID vaccine is safe for healthy adults", the output might be
{
  "verdict": "SUPPORT",
  "evidence": ["Our findings indicate that the risks of severe COVID vaccine side effects are low for healthy adults."]
}

Claim: Altered blood pressure traits underlie a major genetic locus of severe covid-19

Abstract:
Purpose: The genetic locus 3p21.31 has been associated with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the underlying pathophysiological mechanism is unknown.
Methods: To identify intermediate traits of the COVID-19 risk variant, we performed a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) with 923 phenotypes in 310,999 European individuals from UK Biobank.
For candidate target genes, we examined associations between their expression and the polygenic score (PGS) of 1,263 complex traits in a meta-analysis of 31,684 blood samples.
Results: Our PheWAS identified and replicated multiple blood cell traits to be associated with the COVID-19 risk variant, including monocyte count and percentage (p = 1.07e-8, 4.09e-13), eosinophil count and percentage (p = 5.73e-3, 2.20e-3), and neutrophil percentage (p = 3.23e-3).
The PGS analysis revealed positive associations between the expression of candidate genes and genetically predicted counts of specific blood cells: CCR3 with eosinophil and basophil (p = 5.73e-21, 5.08e-19); CCR2 with monocytes (p = 2.40e-10); and CCR1 with monocytes and neutrophil (p = 1.78e-6, 7.17e-5).
Conclusions: Multiple blood cell traits, especially monocyte, eosinophil, and neutrophil numbers, are associated with the COVID-19 risk variant and the expression of its candidate target genes, representing probable mechanistic links between the genetic locus 3p21.31 and severe COVID-19.
{"verdict": "CONTRADICT", "evidence": ["Conclusions: Multiple blood cell traits, especially monocyte, eosinophil, and neutrophil numbers, are associated with the COVID-19 risk variant and the expression of its candidate target genes, representing probable mechanistic links between the genetic locus 3p21.31 and severe COVID-19."]}