Theory 26/Competing Rates/Virology
Peak Viral Load Is a Race
The claim
Peak viral load is set by the ratio of replication rate to clearance rate in the first days, so a slower virus with much slower clearance can peak higher.
01Mechanism
Load is the integral of (replication minus clearance); when clearance is negligible, even slow replication accumulates.
02Prediction
Peak should track the ratio across variants.
03Refutation
Peak tracking replication rate alone would remove clearance.