Trump’s supporters in the media told their audiences that news outfits were exaggerating the threat of COVID-19 to hurt his chances for re-election. What nonsense.

President Donald Trump last week lashed out at MSNBC and CNN for trying to the make the coronavirus “look as bad as possible.”

Trump’s supporters in the media told their audiences that news outfits were exaggerating the threat of COVID-19 to hurt his chances for re-election.

What nonsense.

Coronavirus disease 2019 was a big deal getting bigger. How the United States responds to it deserves in-depth coverage. To do less with this evolving story would be irresponsible. The coronavirus is killing people.

This was the situation at the end of last week:

More than 85,000 coronavirus cases had been confirmed globally. The vast majority were in China, where the virus struck in late 2019. About 3,000 people worldwide had died from it.

Cases in Italy, Iran, South Korea and other countries stoked worries that the virus is spreading and will severely damage economies around the world. That caused stock markets to plummet.

As of Saturday, 71 cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in the U.S., including one death in Washington state. The Centers for Disease Control warned that many more cases in the United States were likely.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a news briefing early last week.

Her “not if but when” statement received wide coverage by the news media. Soon after, Trump posted a tweet that began, “Low Ratings Fake News.”

He went on to say that the MSNBC and CNN cable news channels “are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible.”

He misspelled coronavirus. To spell and pronounce it correctly, think “corona” (circle) and “virus.”

News platforms provided tips on how to avoid catching or spreading the coronavirus. One is to wash our hands with soap and water frequently for at least 30 seconds.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the coronavirus, which targets the respiratory system, is like “a common cold.”

He said members of the media “would love for the coronavirus to be the deadly strain that wipes everybody out so they could blame Trump for it.”

On the Fox News Channel, Sean Hannity lambasted the “mob in the media” and said news outlets failed to tell the public that the Trump administration has been “aggressively responding to the corona outbreak for quite a while.”

On "Fox & Friends," the hosts said prominent Democrats and news organizations were over-playing coronavirus to hurt Trump.

"They shouldn't make it political," said Ainsley Earhardt.

Of course, Democrats made it political. So did Trump. Everything in Washington is political these days.

But the news media were doing their job by keeping up with a story that could have an impact on many of us.

At a televised White House briefing, Trump announced that the government’s response to the coronavirus would be coordinated by Vice President Mike Pence and not a public-health expert.

Before commenting on the coronavirus to outsiders, anyone in the executive branch of the federal government must clear it with Pence.

I wondered if the vice president would facilitate the flow of information about the coronavirus to the news media and then to us. Or would he block it?

PAUL JANENSCH, VERO BEACH

Editor’s note: Janensch, a seasonal resident of Vero Beach, is a former newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.