When President Trump returned home from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he stood triumphantly on the White House balcony and stripped off his protective face mask. A relatively recent part of his pandemic wardrobe, it was meant to signal his return to full health.

It wasn’t the first time unmasking has become an issue in the Trump White House, but the president was sending a message. “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen, and I’m extremely young,” Trump, 74, told Fox News days later.