COVID-19 surges are driven by appearance of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, genome sequencing shows Genome sequencing of thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples shows that surges of COVID-19 cases are driven by the appearance of new coronavirus variants, according to new research from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis published April 1 in Scientific Reports. As variants emerge, you're going to get new outbreaks." Bart Weimer, Professor of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California - Davis The merger of classical epidemiology with genomics provides a tool public health authorities could use to predict the course of pandemics, whether of coronavirus, influenza or some new pathogen.