It is usual for viruses to change and evolve as they spread between people over time. When these changes become significantly different to a previously detected virus, these new virus types are known as “variants.” To identify variants, scientists map the genetic material of viruses (known as sequencing) and then look for differences between them to see if they have changed.
Since 2020, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been spreading and changing globally. These changes have led to the detection of variants in many countries around the world. The more significant of these variants are grouped in three different ways – variants under monitoring, variants of interest and variants of concern.

A Variant of Concern (VOC) is a term that describes a SARS-CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above), but also meets at least one of the following criteria when compared with other variants:

• it can cause a detrimental change in disease severity;
• it can have a substantial impact on the ability of health systems to provide care to patients with COVID-19 or other illnesses and therefore require major public health interventions; or
• there is a significant decrease in the effectiveness of available vaccines in protecting against severe disease.

A VOC variant will be assigned a greek letter.

GISAID
https://gisaid.org/hcov19-variants

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