Any White House reporter who insists on asking the president whether something he said has alarmed people should first be asked to explain the running tally of deaths and infections that cable news keeps plastered on everyone’s screens.

A Bloomberg reporter at Sunday’s press briefing asked President Trump whether he “maybe frightened some Americans” by suggesting in a tweet that New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut may need a federally mandated quarantine.

At a separate press briefing two weeks ago, NBC’s Peter Alexander asked the president if his “impulse to put a positive spin on things may be giving Americans a false sense of hope and misrepresenting the preparedness right now.” That was in reaction to Trump expressing hope that a particular existing drug might work as a treatment against the new coronavirus when there was evidence to suggest that yes, it does.

I understand critical reporting, but if anyone is guilty of scaring the public, it's the national media. They have reported on this pandemic and the administration’s response to it as though it were something out of the Book of Revelations. Every single death is characterized as an avoidable tragedy — something that we should have been able to stop if not for an inept president. In fact, the experiences of many countries not led by Trump has been strikingly similar.

The truth is that no one, not the president, not scientists, and certainly not the media, has a firm grasp on what will happen with the coronavirus. So far, we’ve identified trends in how it affects people, and we have some projections about how bad things will get, but that’s about it.

The virus tends to sicken the elderly and those who have compromised immune systems the most severely. Those are the patients most likely to die from the illness, though the numbers as of this moment suggest that among those infected, less than 2% may die. And that number is more likely overstated given the shortage of tests and the number of people who don’t even bother getting tested because their symptoms are mild or nonexistent.

Just a month ago, the same news outlets trying to whip up a panic were downplaying the coronavirus.

The Washington Post on Feb. 1 reported: “Clearly, the flu poses the bigger and more pressing peril.” The liberal Daily Beast on Feb. 6: “The virus killing U.S. kids isn’t the one dominating the headlines.” (It was referring to the flu.)

So at what point will they admit ignorance?

We can take for granted that the spread of a deadly new virus is a bad thing. But it’s kind of useless to ask the president if he “frightened” people or if he’s giving the public a “false sense of hope” in being too optimistic or pessimistic about certain medicines or quarantine measures.

Reporters can keep people in a panic as long as they want. But their worthless nagging about the administration’s response to a health scare nobody yet completely understands is just that — worthless.