Antibody test negative; Acute test result not available yet

Long story short, I was playing basketball with a guy who later tested positive, and contacted me through contact tracing.

I went in for the test, and also took the antibody test, 8 days after the potential exposure. My antibody test came back negative, and with a bunch of generic caveats stating that I shouldn’t assume I’m negative.

However, I would think that If I did have the virus, I should have produced enough antibodies 8 days later for that one to come back positive as well. Am I missing something here?

I fully understand the caveats, since someone may have been exposed only a few days prior to testing, which may not allow for enough time to produce a detectable level of antibodies. But isn’t 8 days long enough?

What doesn’t help is that I’ve developed a headache and cough, but I’m currently attributing that to allergies.

Rest assured, I’ve avoided all physical interactions since I got the news, at least until I get the acute test result back.

I just found the answer, and it can take up to 3 weeks for the antibodies to be produced. For some reason, my first Google search only showed the earliest possible time.