To address this question, consider the delay time that describes how long it will take, following the start of infection, for virus progeny to be released from infected cells (left). Analysis of such growth curves for more than 100 viruses indicate delay times from less than 100 to more than 10,000 minutes or about 1

Different cells from the same environment produce a wide range of virus particles from less than 100 (curve B3) to nearly 10,000 (curve C7 and A3); experiments are for vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infections of BHK21 host cells.  For details see Timm and Yin (2012).

When a virus infects a living cell, how long before virus progeny are released, and how many particles will be made? One may build a model for infection by writing equations that describe each of the essential steps: entry, transcription, translation, genome replication, particle assembly and release from the cell. Experimental data are used to

In the absence of interfering particles, virus infections spread uniformly to greater radii (far left, red protein expression linked to virus growth). When interfering particles are present, infection is limited (only patchy red). Green protein expression is driven by interfering particles, and yellow reflects a balance of co-infection (virus and interfering particles). For details, see

In the absence of flow regions of cell infection are localized (white points). But in the presence of outward radial flows, regions of infection are spread in the direction of flow (white comets). Culture wells are 35mm in diameter. Details are Zhu et al. 2007. How do spontaneous fluid flows arise in culture wells? Evaporation