If we poll the interface every 5 minutes, but the interface changes status to DOWN and then back to UP inside that 5 minutes, we won’t detect the change.

From your log below, it looks like the interface was only DOWN for a few seconds each time.

If you are looking to detect momentary changes like this, then you will want to monitor the link via the Dynamic Network Map (which has 5 second updates).

Alternately, you can also set the device to send out syslog messages to the TotalView server when interfaces change status, and have our syslog server generate alerts when an interface changes status. That way, you can have immediate instant notification about interfaces changing status.