Does “Infected” mean Knox infection?

No. The red Infected label on a body part reports an ordinary wound infection; it does not read the separate Knox-infection state. A bite can set both systems, so the label alone can neither confirm nor rule out zombification.

What the wound label means

Open scratches, cuts, deep wounds and stitches can develop an ordinary wound infection. That infection adds pain and can contribute to severe wound damage. Setting Wound Infection Factor to zero removes that severe-damage contribution, but it does not disable the infection roll, label, progression or added pain.

When a bite is lethal

The answer comes from Transmission and Mortality in the World settings:

• Transmission = None: the direct bite path does not create a Knox infection.
• Blood and Saliva, Saliva Only and Everyone’s Infected: the direct bite path assigns a real Knox infection.
• Mortality = Never: the bite becomes the build’s temporary fake-fever path instead of lethal Knox progression. The wound itself can still bleed, hurt and kill through other damage.

The familiar 7% and 25% figures apply only to the traced, unblocked zombie-combat scratch and laceration paths. A bite is not a 100% roll: it is a deterministic assignment gated by Transmission and Mortality. Saliva Only and None clear the scratch/laceration result.

The Resilientand Prone to Illnesstraits change the selected mortality duration, not the 7% or 25% transmission roll.

Fast Healer and Slow Healer change the bite wound timer, not whether the bite assigns Knox infection.

Queasy is not a diagnosis

Queasy, Nauseous, Sick and Fever are levels of the same sickness moodle. Knox infection, temporary fever, food poisoning, poison and corpse sickness can all cause it. Ordinary wound infection does not drive this moodle, so the label alone cannot tell you the cause.

Food sickness has its own treatment path: Lemongrassreduces that stat rather than ordinary wound infection or real Knox infection.

What treatment can change

• Bottle of Disinfectant, Alcohol Wipes and Cotton Balls Doused in Alcohol reduce an existing ordinary wound infection while their alcohol effect lasts. They do not clear Knox infection.
• Bandage (Sterilized) and Rag (Sterilized) block the ordinary open-wound infection roll while the bandage remains effective and reduce an existing wound infection; that guard does not come from a plain Bandage / Rag.
• Antibiotics drain ordinary wound infection and the nonlethal fake-fever stat. They do not lower real Knox progression or prevent zombification.

Read the wound label, the sickness moodle and Knox exposure as separate signals. Use the current sandbox settings to assess risk; do not turn one UI label or a timing pattern from another build into certainty.