WASHINGTON (AP) Masks were rarely spotted in the West Wing. Crowds of people gathered shoulder to shoulder on the White House South Lawn. And Air Force One streaked across the sky from one massive campaign rally to another.

With ready access to testing and the best public health minds at his disposal, President Donald Trump should have been the American safest from COVID-19. Instead, he flouted his own governments guidelines and helped create a false sense of invulnerability in the White House, an approach that has now failed him as it did a nation where more than 200,000 people have died.

Marine One, the presidential helicopter, lifted off Friday to take Trump to a military hospital from the same White House lawn that less than a week earlier had been the site of his celebratory nomination of a new Supreme Court justice as he charged toward the November election.

At least six people at the event two U.S. senators , former counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway , University of Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins , as well as Trump and first lady Melania Trump have since tested positive for the coronavirus. Trump is now ensconced at Walter Reed medical center after running a fever and feeling fatigued following his early-morning revelation that he had tested positive for the virus.