Researchers from Cambridge, U.K., and Germany have used a genetic network technique known as phylogenetic network analysis to reconstruct the early evolutionary paths of SARS-CoV-2 in humans as infection spread from Wuhan out to Europe and North America. By analyzing the first 160 complete viral genomes to be sequenced from human patients, the scientists say they have mapped some of the original spread of the new coronavirus through its mutations, which result in different viral lineages. The team’s results identified three central variants, A, B, and C, which spread differentially.
