I think that is where media failed folks. They did not give it a "progressive" feel. They made it concrete and linear while it isn’t. No illness is. No one gets sick exactly like another person. Ever! . But they have gotten it to where it is in a box. X = y always then r = s.
There are however "ways"the human body responds to things that are not supposed to be inside! I am visual – if we think about both the virus and the antibodies as being mixed in water, and filling up a swimming pool, the more water, the more virus, more antibodies and higher fever. It takes time to fill up the pool , and it takes time for the pool to overlfow.
It is a process. They totally ,IMO, did a horrible job as "viral loading" is so important in virus stuff. Makes sense – more virus- higher concentrations. More concentrated, worse symptoms, higher fever. The test is not testing "for" Ebola.
The test is hunting for a detectable load, or quantity of the virus in the bloodstream and cells. Until the loading is high enough for both - to be detected in the test and trigger a fever it make sense that the person is not contagious simply because the concentration of the virus in the fluids isn’t even high enough for the body to register and start a fever nor for the test to detect.
But there will be thresholds, in which the two correlate as it relates to becoming contagious. The notion that someones viral load is going to be high enough to be transmitted while at the same time not regustering in the test or a fever beginning just is not the way it works. Same with any infection.
So, its like, IMO, going up a hill the higher up you are, and you fall (!) the harder your going to hit. But anything concentrated does influence what "it" does. And the concentration level does impact the whole thing.
Viral loads are solely used in HIV. It dictates treatment, it dictates which antivirals, it dictates the determination of weather of one anti viral is working or not. It determines how an individual feels , It determines what damage is done to organs .
Viral loading is in essence the entire thing.........................IMO!