Skoltech scientists Georgii Bazykin, Ksenia Safina and Elena Nabieva together with colleagues from other Russian institutions have discovered a novel variant of SARS-CoV-2! The researchers have performed a genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a lymphoma patient with a long-term COVID-19. This genome is characterized by an independent gain of 18 new mutations over more than 4 months of the disease. These include the S:Y453F and Δ69-70HV mutations which have formerly been associated with mink-related clusters. Full text of the preprint is available here.