Detection of Genomic Variations of SARS‐CoV‐2 on the S‐Gene in the Orange County, CA Population

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), more commonly known as COVID‐19, is a virus that has spread at a rapid rate beginning in 2019 causing a pandemic. Currently, we remain in this pandemic, and as this virus progresses it is creating mutations of itself, called variants. With these variants, it has become increasingly difficult to control COVID‐19 and keep track of new variants that continue to infect people everywhere. In Orange County, California, COVID‐19 and its variants have enabled county wide shut downs and thousands of infections and deaths. To investigate its devastating effect, five positive COVID‐19 nasal samples were collected between February 2021 to July 2021, and the RNA was extracted. After extraction, a Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT‐PCR) was done to amplify 1,727 base pairs of the S‐ Gene within the COVID‐19 genome and was sent to sequencing. These sequences were then aligned using the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) and compared to the original COVID‐19 S‐Gene genome to analyze possible variations. Within the five samples, 30 different mutations were detected and a phylogenetic tree was generated. Awareness of the genetic variation of SARS‐CoV‐2 provides potential future development for more effective targeted research.