He's fought COVID-19 for months. Can he ever really beat it?

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Larry Brown had been on a ventilator for 37 days. Nurses periodically turned the 45-year-old former Indiana State football player onto his stomach to help him breathe. Though sedated, he had tried to pull off the equipment keeping him alive, so his arms were strapped down.

But Brown’s lungs were filling with fluid, and doctors didn’t expect him to last much longer. As visitors weren’t allowed in the intensive care unit, a nurse placed a phone next to his ear.

“Thank you for fighting so hard, Larry,” his sister-in-law, Ellie Brown, told him. She was careful not to say goodbye. If he could hear her, that might scare him.

Like millions of COVID-19 cases, Brown’s had started with minor symptoms — fatigue, loss of appetite. When he fell ill in mid-March, people in the United States were becoming familiar with the novel coronavirus. Mask use wasn’t widespread outside hospitals. Around Brown’s hometown, Indianapolis, fewer than 10 new cases were reported each day, on average. Businesses were just starting to shutter around him in response to state orders — but only until the country could flatten the curve, nearly everyone thought. And the vast majority of cases weren’t severe, officials said.

Yet Brown spiraled quickly. His doctors were stumped as they scoured medical texts for treatments. His close-knit family watched him deteriorate in the hospital, even as others recovered from the virus.

They feared they would lose him but wouldn't call it quits. “People weren’t ready to go there,” Ellie Brown said.

Turns out, neither was Larry.

After that phone call, Brown slowly started to improve. He would remain on the ventilator for nearly two more weeks, for a total of about 50 days. But coming out of the medically induced coma...