An Entropy-based study on Mutational Trajectory of SARS-CoV-2 in India

The pandemic of COVID-19 has been haunting us for almost the past two years. Although, the vaccination drive is infull swing throughout the world, different mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are making it very difficult to put an endto the pandemic. The second wave in India, one of the worst sufferers of this pandemic, can be mainly attributed to theDelta variant i.e. B.1.617.2. Thus, it is very important to analyse and understand the mutational trajectory of SARS-CoV-2 through the study of the 26 virus proteins. In this regard, more than 17000 protein sequences of SARS-CoV-2are analysed using entropy-based approach in order to find the monthly mutational trajectory. Furthermore, Hellingerdistance is also used to show the difference of the mutation events between the consecutive months for each of the 26SARS-CoV-2 proteins. The results show that the mutation rates and the mutation events of the viral proteins thoughchanging in the initial months, start stabilising later on for mainly the four structural proteins while the non-structuralproteins mostly exhibit a more constant trend. As a consequence, it can be inferred that the evolution of the new mutativeconfigurations will eventually reduce.