First report on the Latvian SARS-CoV-2 isolate genetic diversity

Remaining a major healthcare concern with nearly 29 million confirmed cases worldwide at the time of writing, novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus - 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused more than 920 thousand deaths since its outbreak in China, December 2019. First case of a person testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection within the territory of the Republic of Latvia was registered on 2 ^nd of March 2020, nine days prior to the pandemic declaration by WHO. Since then, more than 277 000 tests were carried out confirming a total of 1464 cases of COVID-19 in the country as of 12 ^th of September 2020. Rapidly reacting to the spread of the infection, an ongoing sequencing campaign was started mid-March in collaboration with the local testing laboratories, with an ultimate goal in sequencing as much local viral isolates as possible, resulting in first full-length SARS-CoV-2 isolate genome sequences from the Baltics region being made publicly available in early April. With 133 viral isolates representing ∼9.1% of the total COVID-19 cases in the country being completely sequenced as of today, here we provide a first report on the genetic diversity of Latvian SARS-CoV-2 isolates.