Overview

Information-theoretic diagnostic tools are shown to quantify Evolution through the Emergence and Cross Emergence Functions and the Indices of Divergence.The COVID-19 pandemic is described as a self-organizing, information generating, and manipulating dynamical system at local and global scales.The optimum productivity of the Virus, measured by the numbers of infected cases, is shown to lead to the Diversity of Emergence of the variants.The Emergence and Cross Emergence Functions constructed from the appropriately defined probability distributions, generate the spatial and temporal profiles of (a) the Emergence of the pandemic, (b) the Evolution of the variants of SARS-CoV-2 and (c) the history of the mutations of the variants with higher survival characteristics.The book tells the tale of the Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 through Emergence Functions, Cross Emergence Functions and the Indices of Divergence.