Molecular Architecture of Early Dissemination and Massive Second Wave of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus in a Major Metropolitan Area
S. Wesley Long, Randall J. Olsen, Paul A. Christensen, David W. Bernard, James J. Davis, Maulik Shukla, Marcus Nguyen, Matthew Ojeda Saavedra, Prasanti Yerramilli, Layne Pruitt, Sishir Subedi, Hung‐Che Kuo, Heather Hendrickson, Ghazaleh Eskandari, Hoang Anh Nguyen, Junke Long, Muthiah Kumaraswami, Jule Goike, Daniel R. Boutz, Jimmy Gollihar, Jason S. McLellan, Chia‐Wei Chou, Kamyab Javanmardi, Ilya J. Finkelstein, James M. Musser
Abstract
There is concern about second and subsequent waves of COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus occurring in communities globally that had an initial disease wave. Metropolitan Houston, TX, with a population of 7 million, is experiencing a massive second disease wave that began in late May 2020. To understand SARS-CoV-2 molecular population genomic architecture and evolution and the relationship between virus genotypes and patient features, we sequenced the genomes of 5,085 SARS-CoV-2 strains from these two waves. Our report provides the first molecular characterization of SARS-CoV-2 strains causing two distinct COVID-19 disease waves.