Chances are that you’ve head about variants of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19. When viruses replicate, sometimes there are replication errors that are known as mutations. Mutations can render the virus harmless or could result in more efficient transmission (how well it spreads) or greater disease severity (including higher rates of hospitalization and/or death), depending on the nature of the mutation.
Variants are classified as variants of interest (limited impact), variants of concern (increased transmissibility or disease severity), and variants of high consequence (significantly reduced effectiveness of preventive or treatment measures).
- There are currently 4 variants of interest in the US: B.1.526 (New York City), B.1.526.1 (New York City), B.1.525 (United Kingdom/Nigeria), and P.2 (Brazil)
- There are currently 5 variants of concern in the US: B.1.1.7 (United Kingdom), B.1.351 (South Africa), P.1 (Japan/Brazil), B.1.427 (California), and B.1.429 (California)
- There are currently no variants of high consequence in the US
If you have an interest in tracking coronavirus variants and are a visual person, then you’ll probably appreciate the data visualizations from the GISAID Initiative which promotes the rapid sharing of data from influenza viruses and SARS-CoV-2.
Simply select a variant in the drop-down menu and explore animated maps, variant genome frequency plots, and downloadable variant data tables.
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