Don’t Let Your Omicron Genes Drop Out: The Value of Variant-Specific Assays in Detecting New SARS-CoV-2 Strains
The recently reported Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has a 69-70del mutation in the S-gene (which codes for the spike protein). This implies that the S-gene is not detected on PCR tests. The World Health Organization (WHO) in a statement on November 26, 2021, stated that this S-gene “dropout” or S-gene target failure (SGTF) could be […]