A single RT protocol is used regardless of input amount (10-10,000 viral genome copies), and no normalization step is required ahead of targeted amplification.

This kit includes two options for primers, including new VarSkip Short v2 primers:
1.The VarSkip (for Variant Skip) Short primers have been designed at NEB to reduce the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on amplification and provide improved performance, including with the Omicron variant. VarSkip Short v2 primer pools generate ~550bp amplicons. Please see the FAQ section and the product manual for additional detail. Information on primer variant overlaps can be found here.
2.The V3 ARTIC primers have been balanced, using methodology developed at NEB based on empirical data from sequencing. In combination with optimized reagents for RT-PCR, the kits deliver improved uniformity of amplicon yields from gRNA across a wide copy number range.