Arrangements of amino acids that form viral proteins can be analogized to sequences of words that imbue languages such as English with meaning, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who are using machine-learning algorithms developed for natural language to assess which mutations hold the potential to evade the body’s immune defenses. The MIT researchers have trained such algorithms in a task they call constrained semantic change search (CSCS) that enables them to study viral mutations, including those that develop into highly infectious coronavirus variants such as those that first emerged in the UK and South Africa. As with the change in the second sentence (from left) above, the so-called spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus that enables it latch on to human receptor cells may mutate slightly but still resemble the original enough for the immune system to recognize and attack it. Or, as with “eats,” in the sentence at far right, a mutation may observe “protein grammar” but change sufficiently that antibodies made by the immune system may no longer bind to it, as if the virus appears in disguise.

Walmart-owned Myntra and Mukesh Ambani’s Ajio saw a dip in reach when the nationwide lockdown started in March last year. However, the festive season in India delivered, and both the players surpassed pre-Covid reach by the end of the year, data from market intelligence firm Kalagato show. By December, nearly 60% of Ajio and Myntra app users were opening the apps at least once each month. The percentage of customers who transacted on Myntra was nearly four times that of Ajio in January 2020.

This is a major shift in India’s stance so far, where it had preferred vaccines manufactured in India, and had made it mandatory for foreign-made vaccines to conduct local, bridging trials in the country.“We hope and we invite the vaccine makers such as Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and others…to be ready to come to India as early as possible,” Vinod Kumar Paul, chairperson of India’s expert group on vaccines, said during a press briefing. At the time, Serum Institute of India’s Covishield, which is essentially the AstraZeneca vaccine, and India’s homegrown Covaxin had also applied for approvals. Similarly, India’s subject expert committee had deliberated for several months before granting Sputnik V, an emergency approval, even though the Russian vaccine maker had tied up with India’s Dr Reddy’s Laboratories for local trials.

Those are just a few of the comments by ministers and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members from 2020, referring to a gathering by the Tablighi Jamaat group in Delhi that turned out to be an early Covid-19 hotspot. Imagine if the Tablighi Jamaat gathering had been happening right now, with India in the grip of a brutal second wave of Covid-19 and daily case counts hitting numbers far higher than the worst days of 2020. So what explains the relative silence of the government and the BJP when the same comment comes from the Inspector General of the Kumbh Mela currently taking place in Uttarakhand?Rawat, who contracted Covid-19 just days after insisting that faith would overcome fear, has insisted that the Kumbh should not be compared to the Tablighi Jamaat gathering.