Emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) resulted in the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic that affected populations globally for several recent years. While effective vaccines have been developed as the major antiviral strategy against COVID-19, hospitalizations and severe long-term conditions of SARS-CoV-2 patients are still occurring. Cell death mechanisms are known to play a significant role in antiviral host defense mechanisms. However, recent research indicates that cell death may also be involved in the viral pathophysiology associated with coronavirus infection, and determining treatments based on mediators of dysregulated cell death can have advantageous applications for severe cases of COVID-19. Since current research on cell death mechanisms (pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis) does not extensively identify treatments related to the potentially harmful roles of cell death in COVID-19 infection, examining cell death mediators and existing treatments in previous respiratory RNA infections (such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and human metapneumovirus) can elucidate potential therapeutic agents for SARS-CoV-2. This review serves to reveal the extent to which cell death mechanisms play a detrimental role in response to viral infections (specifically to SARS-CoV-2), which may highlight novel antiviral strategies to combat severe coronavirus infection.