In December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) appeared in Wuhan, China. After that, it spread rapidly all over the world. Novel coronavirus belongs to the family of Coronaviridae and this new strain is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Epithelial cells of our throat and lungs are the main target area of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which leads to COVID-19 disease. In this article, we propose a mathematical model for examining the effects of antiviral treatment over viral mutation to control disease transmission. We have considered here three populations namely uninfected epithelial cells, infected epithelial cells, and SARS-CoV-2 virus. To explore the model in light of the optimal control-theoretic strategy, we use Pontryagin’s maximum principle. We also illustrate the existence of the optimal control and the effectiveness of the optimal control is studied here. Cost-effectiveness and efficiency analysis confirms that time-dependent antiviral controlled drug therapy can reduce the viral load and infection process at a low cost. Numerical simulations have been done to illustrate our analytical findings. In addition, a new variable-order fractional model is proposed to investigate the effect of antiviral treatment over viral mutation to control disease transmission. Considering the superiority of fractional order calculus in the modeling of systems and processes, the proposed variable-order fractional model can provide more accurate insight for the modeling of the disease. Then through the genetic algorithm, optimal treatment is presented, and its numerical simulations are illustrated.

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