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Hallberg's Picture of Health
Tom Crann and Dr. Jon Hallberg

Intermittent COVID-19 symptoms likely just one, long infection — and that's good news

A woman gets a vaccine.
A pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller (left) the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19 at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle on March 16.
Ted S. Warren | AP

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Dr. Jon Hallberg said he has patients who have battled COVID-19 for months, with their symptoms swinging from severe to mild and back again.

“And the question is — is a person sick and then they recover and then they get sick again with a second or third infection?” said Hallberg, medical director of the University of Minnesota Physicians Mill City Clinic. “It really seems — the more we dig into this — that folks are just continuously sick. They have the same viral infection that really ebbs and flows.”

While this symptom roller coaster is by no means good news for the patient, Hallberg said it bodes well for herd immunity and vaccine development. If his patients had been getting reinfected, it would have meant that immunity to the virus is fleeting.

Hallberg spoke about this with MPR News host Tom Crann. You can hear more by clicking play on the audio player above.