Advantages of Software Containerization in Public Health Infectious Disease Genomic Surveillance

Bioinformatic software containerization, the process of packaging software that encapsulates an application together with all necessary dependencies to simplify installation and use, has improved the deployment and management of next-generation sequencing workflows in both clinical and public health laboratories. Containers have increased next-generation sequencing workflow reproducibility and broadened their usage across different laboratories. We highlight the value of the State Public Health Bioinformatics community's containerized software repository during the COVID-19 pandemic.