I’m not sure what you mean by granularity. I am saying that a negative result could be a new infection and not enough time has passed to make antibody OR it could be a false negative for HSV 1 (unlikely for HSV 2 if you have waited long enough from exposure to testing). an equivocal value could mean antibody is developing OR it is not developing and something else is tripping the test. Low positive numbers could be one of three things 1) antibody in the process of developing or 2) that’s just the value that someone has or 3) it is a false positive. A true positive cannot tell you duration of infection. The only way to know about the duration of infection is to have a positive swab test while having a negative antibody test followed by a positive antibody test. that can tell you that you have new infection.
Shedding can be evaluated by daily home swabbing of the genital area. It takes about 60 second a day for a male and each vial collected is $75. Some people collect seven swabs in one vial for expense purposes and that would let a person know if they were shedding at all in a given week but not how many days of shedding happen.
Transmission rates from male to female of HSV 2 without treatment having sex about twice per year without condoms is about 10% – on treatment, it is 5% approximately
Yes, someone could acquire HSV 2 or HSV 1 with no recognized symptoms
Terri