Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Wuhan (Hubei, China), has been ongoing for about a year and a half. An unprecedented number of people around the world have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of COVID-19. Despite the fact that the mortality rate for COVID-19 is relatively low, the total number of deaths has currently already reached more than three million and continues to increase due to high incidence. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a large number of sequences have been obtained and many genetic variants have been identified. Some of them bear significant mutations that affect biological properties of the virus. These genetic variants, currently Variants of Concern (VoC), include the so-called United Kingdom variant (20I/501Y), the Brazilian variant (20J/501Y.V3), and the South African variant (20H/501Y.V2). We describe here a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant with distinct spike protein mutations, first obtained at the end of January 2021 in northwest Russia. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the dynamics of its spread among patients with COVID-19, as well as to study in detail its biological properties.
Highlights
Spread of the virus was facilitated by several factors: the airborne transmission route of SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of COVID-19, active cross-border migration of the population, and delays in the introduction of restrictive measures by a number of countries due to epidemic situation complications
We describe two genomes sequenced during routine studies of the genetic diversity of strains circulating in the Northwestern Federal District of Russia
During routine study of SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity in Russia up to January 2021, 834 nasopharyngeal swabs from patients with COVID-19, admitted to hospitals located in different regions of northwest Russia, were collected and delivered to the Saint Petersburg
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. More than a year has passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, which occurred in late December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province (China). The epidemic has become a pandemic covering all continents, with the exception of Antarctica. As of the end of April 2021, 140,332,386 cases of COVID-19 have been identified, 3,004,088 of which were fatal (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiologicalupdate-on-covid-19---20-april-2021, accessed on 28 May 2021). Spread of the virus was facilitated by several factors: the airborne transmission route of SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of COVID-19, active cross-border migration of the population, and delays in the introduction of restrictive measures by a number of countries due to epidemic situation complications
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