With the emergence of new variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), responsible for the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the prospect of effective containment of viral transmission has receded. Not only are they more transmissible than the earlier strains, but they also offer partial resistance to neutralization by existing antibodies in some cases. Moreover, they can evade detection by current antigen detection kits because of mutations in the spike protein with each of the new variants.
