Genomic Surveillance Tracks the First Community Outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) Variant in Brazil

As 2021 comes to a close, the advances in vaccination against COVID-19 allow the world to glimpse an end to the pandemic. In Brazil, the disease has cost more than 600,000 lives and affected more than 21 million people. When the second wave of COVID-19 hit in early 2021, the country saw more than 3,500 daily deaths. As Brazil started to recover from this number, the first reports of infection by the Delta (B.1.617.2) Variant of Concern (VoC) in the country were emerging. The first confirmed case of this variant occurred on 26 April 2021, with five states registering infections by it in the following three months. At the time, these cases were considered isolated or contained imported events. Here we describe the early phase of the first large-scale community transmission of the Delta variant in Brazil and the associated interstate dispersal.