. 2022 Oct 21;29(1):10–18. doi: 10.1016/j.jtct.2022.10.010

Table 3.

WHO Categorization of Circulating Variants of SARS-CoV-2

Category	WHO Definition
Variant of concern	Increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology; OR increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation; OR decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.
Variant of interest	Genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND identified to cause significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.

Category

WHO Definition

Variant of concern

Increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology; OR
increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation; OR
decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.

Variant of interest

Genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND
identified to cause significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.

WHO indicates World Health Organization.