New Paper (Other): Emergence of a novel SARS-CoV-2 strain in Southern California

[jessegmeyerlab]

Title: Emergence of a novel SARS-CoV-2 strain in Southern California

General Information

Please paste a link to the paper or a citation here:

Link: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.21249786v1

What is the paper's Manubot-style citation?

Citation: [@URL:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.21249786v1]

Is this paper primarily relevant to Background or Pathogenesis?

• [x] Background
• [x] Pathogenesis
• [ ] Methods

Please list some keywords (3-10) that help identify the relevance of this paper to COVID-19

• SARS-CoV-2 variant
• sequencing
• genetics

Please note the publication / review status

• [x] Pre-print
• [ ] New Peer-Reviewed Paper
• [ ] Peer-Reviewed Paper Pre-2020

Which areas of expertise are particularly relevant to the paper?

• [x] virology
• [ ] epidemiology
• [ ] biostatistics
• [ ] immunology
• [ ] pharmacology
• [ ] other:

[jessegmeyerlab]

Summary

Suggested questions to answer about each paper:

• What did they analyze? RNA samples from nasopharyngeal swabs were collected in November/December 2020.

• What methods did they use? RNA-seq with a Novaseq (2x100bp)

• Does this paper study COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, or a related disease and/or virus? This study reports a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 found in Los Angeles.

• What is the main finding (or a few main takeaways)? The novel strain was first rare and then rose to 36.4% prevalence in their sample of 181 strains from Los Angeles.

• What does this paper tell us about the background and/or diagnostics/therapeutics for COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2? The paper contributes to understanding of previous variants in a specific region of the united states.

• Do you have any concerns about methodology or the interpretation of these results beyond this analysis? None. This is a short paper.

Any comments or notes?