On Apr. 19, 2021, the Broad Institute of MIT in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced it was scaling up its COVID-19 viral sequencing efforts to enable genomic surveillance of the virus in their communities.

The Broadﾒs Genomics Platform and the Viral Genomics Group were together sequencing and analyzing viral material in COVID-19 positive patient samples to monitor for known, concerning variants of the virus in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and New England, such as ones that were first detected in the UK, Brazil, and South Africa.