Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) is a novel coronavirus responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. Chains of infections starting from various countries worldwide seeded the outbreak of COVID‐19 in Athens, capital city of Greece. A full‐genome analysis of isolates from Athens' hospitals and other healthcare providers revealed the variety of SARS‐CoV‐2 that initiated the pandemic before lockdown and passenger flight restrictions. A dominant variant, encompassing the G614D amino acid substitution, spread through a major virus dispersal event, and sporadic introductions of rare variants characterized the local initiation of the epidemic. Mutations within the genome highlighted the genetic drift of the virus as rare variants emerged. An important variant contained a premature stop codon in orf7a leading to the truncation of a possibly important for viral pathogenesis domain. This study may serve as a reference for resolving future lines of infection in the area, especially after resumption of passenger flight connections to Athens and Greece during summer of 2020.

中文翻译：

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SARS-CoV-2的一个主要事件和多次引入在希腊引发了COVID-19流行

严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒2（SARS‐CoV‐2）是导致2019年冠状病毒病（COVID‐19）大流行的新型冠状病毒。来自世界各地的感染链引发了在希腊首都雅典爆发的COVID-19疫情。对来自雅典医院和其他医疗服务提供者的分离株进行的全基因组分析显示，SARS-CoV-2的多样性在锁定和乘客飞行限制之前引发了大流行。占主导地位的变体，包括G614D氨基酸取代，通过主要的病毒传播事件传播，而稀有变体的零星引入是流行病的局部引发的特征。基因组内的突变突出了病毒的遗传漂移，因为出现了罕见的变体。一个重要的变体在orf7a中包含一个过早的终止密码子，导致可能对病毒发病机制域重要的基因被截断。该研究可为解决该地区未来的感染途径提供参考，尤其是在2020年夏季恢复飞往雅典和希腊的客运航班之后。