Omicron: Emergence, Detection, and Response

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic emerged in December 2019, and it is still a global threat with quite a few variants. The B.1.1.529, Omicron, identified in South Africa in 2021, was one of the most notorious variants due to its high infection and mutability capacity. The Omicron variant had mutations in the S region of the key RBD which boosted the transmission ability of the virus. Resistance to antibodies and vaccines has been the key features of this variant. The rise of antibody-evading variants has reached alarming proportions and discovery of small molecule inhibitors has been thought to be a solution to this problem. Presently scientific attention has been substantially directed towards computational drug design performing molecular simulations to generate effective chemical agents to tackle the Omicron variant.