John Bessler, the husband of Sen. Amy Klobuchar Amy KlobucharEPA delivers win for ethanol industry angered by waivers to refiners It's time for newspapers to stop endorsing presidential candidates Biden marks anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, knocks Trump and McConnell MORE (D-Minn.), described his experience with the novel coronavirus in an interview Tuesday with “NBC Nightly News.”

Bessler, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, has since recovered, but Klobuchar was unable to leave Washington while he was hospitalized due to her work on the since-passed coronavirus relief package.

"I taught three classes the day before and felt great, and it just suddenly hit me, and I had a fever, and that fever just lasted for days and days," Bessler told the outlet. "I'm 52, very healthy, and it just hit me."

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“This is not a cold,” he added. “You don’t get pneumonia when you get a cold. You don’t end up at the hospital on oxygen when you get a cold. This is really a serious thing.”

"It's one of the hardest, hardest things — and I can't even imagine those families where they hear the opposite news, you know — after he's there for five days, and it turns for the best," Klobuchar said.

"There are people where it turns for the worse, and they're on ventilators, or they don't make it, and it's a heartbreaking thing, and it's why we have to invest in testing and do everything to make up for the mistakes that were made at the beginning, where a country was not prepared for this," she added.

Klobuchar announced that her husband had been released from the hospital in late March, saying in a statement, “He took a good turn, was just released and is now recovering at home. Thanks to those who cared for him and for all front line health care workers.”

The Minnesota senator said earlier that week her family had received Bessler’s positive test results that Monday and that she had not been in close proximity to her husband within the 14-day period prior to the test.