Think you had a bad day at work?

[--Pete]

Hi,

My understanding is that *real* viruses start small but hijack the transcript RNA mechanisms within the cell which convert the cells proteins into virus copies and flood the body hyper-exponentially over time

Following the link you gave led me to this nice pamphlet. While it does not seem to address the exact question I asked, it does seem to give a lot of information at about the level I was looking for. So far, I've only skimmed it, but I'll give it a deeper read later.

When you get a shot of vaccine, it is a massive amount of antigen stimulating compound. So, you are right in that before or earlier is better, otherwise you are behind the viral load of the *real* virus.

OK, so that helps to explain how a vaccine can help in the case of a slow working virus. The immune system gets kick started before the real virus can spread, and so when it does start to spread the system can keep it down better. Would be good for, say, rabies (but why the boosters?). But how would it be able to do much for something as fast as Ebola?

--Pete