While several promising vaccines have begun to stem the tide of global COVID-19 crisis, the rapid emergence of a number of more highly transmissible and more deadly mutant COVID-19 variants threatens to worsen and prolong this tragedy. The quick emergence of these variants--now the dominant COVID-19 infection in several countries--has highlighted several main problems/needs related to a strategic mitigation and control response to this worldwide crisis including: 1) the need for global and nationally coordinated contact tracing infrastructures; 2) the need for ‘maximum suppression’ variant contact tracing systems interventions; 3) the need for strategic execution vehicles to implement these interventions; and 4) the need for data analytics-enabled technology innovations to support these vehicles.