At the quantum framework, everything in the world is made up by the particles in the standard model of particle physics and their interactions. All other theories can be shown mathematically to be emergent from this level.
The macroscopic electric and magnetic fields are the result of the addition of a high number of charged quantum particles, what is a "force" at the quantum level is built up to "force" of classical level electric and magnetic fields.
What is the electric "force" at the quantum level? It is the exchange of dp/dt, (p a momentum vector) between two interacting charged particles, for example two electrons, a first order term in the expansion in series for the solution :

The diagram is a recipe for writing the integrals necessary for a calculation of the probability of interaction between two electrons.
The dp/dt is assigned to the virtual photon connecting the two vertices. Virtual particles are a mnemonic to help in conserving the quantum numbers characterising the interaction.
In principle, no matter how far away are two electrons , they will be interacting with such a virtual photon. In order to detect an electric field there must be an interaction at the quantum level. When distances are large, the classical "force" can be defined within classical electrodynamics.
So in a nonmathematical description one can say that a static field is built up by virtual photons. A test charge measuring classically the static electric field reacts with F=ma , and F is the sum of the dp/dt for each individual quantum interaction . Considering that the number of fundamental charges are of the order of ~ $10^{23}$ (avogadro number) it is better to use classical electrodynamics.