Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2: The Emergence of Important Genetic Variants and Testing Options for Clinical Laboratories

Monitoring the spread of emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants relies on rapid genetic testing of the viral genome. The sequencing method commonly called next-generation sequencing can identify virus variants. At times, for target-specific mutation detection, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction is used to identify specific variants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's national SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance Program is a comprehensive, population-based U.S. surveillance system to monitor SARS-CoV-2 genes, identifying emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to determine implications for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) diagnostics, therapy, and vaccines. This review describes the main viral variants of concern and their potential impacts and briefly describes testing strategies.