Scientists worldwide are racing to develop effective vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic. An important and perhaps underappreciated aspect of this endeavor is ensuring that the vaccines being developed confer immunity to all viral lineages in the global population. Toward this end, a seminal study published in PNAS (1) analyzes 27,977 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from 84 countries obtained throughout the course of the pandemic to track and characterize the evolution of the novel coronavirus since its origination. The principle conclusion reached by the authors of this work is that SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity is remarkably low, almost entirely the product of genetic drift, and should not be expected to impede development of a broadly protective vaccine.

中文翻译：

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遗传多样性低可能是 SARS-CoV-2 的致命弱点。


世界各地的科学家正在竞相开发针对严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2 (SARS-CoV-2)（COVID-19 大流行的病原体）的有效疫苗。这项努力的一个重要但可能未被充分认识的方面是确保正在开发的疫苗赋予全球人群对所有病毒谱系的免疫力。为此，发表在 PNAS ( 1 ) 上的一项开创性研究分析了在整个大流行过程中获得的来自 84 个国家的 27,977 个 SARS-CoV-2 序列，以跟踪和描述新型冠状病毒自起源以来的演变。这项工作的作者得出的主要结论是，SARS-CoV-2 遗传多样性非常低，几乎完全是遗传漂变的产物，不应期望它会阻碍广泛保护性疫苗的开发。