With an hour left in the Donald Trump presidency, I found myself on my knees in the basement of the White House press offices.

A cockroach had been spotted, and a fellow reporter asked me to deal with it; I was successful. Yes, the scene could be read as a metaphor for my four years covering the Trump White House.

But there is no rest for the wicked. A new administration swept in the White House doors last Wednesday afternoon, bringing with it a fresh agenda and new protocols.

As a reporter, it’s easy to be happy about the first week of the Biden administration. Not once has anyone called us the enemy of the state or accused us of being fake news. The new crew has been professional, convivial and at times charming.

They have not been the quickest to return calls or emails, but they’re new. They’ll learn. On Friday Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a small gaggle (an informal briefing) outside her office, spending about 10 minutes talking to me, Steven Portnoy of CBS, Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker of NBC and a few other reporters. We were able to get explanations and clarifications on several issues that cropped up that day.

It was the first impromptu gaggle I’ve attended in two years. The pandemic had complicated covering President Trump, but those complications weren’t the root cause of the lack of contact between the Trump administration and the press. That was because of Trump. He loathed providing any explanations, background or context.

The Biden administration is operating differently. It is a welcome change. Other changes from the Biden White House are not.

To make the best of a bad situation over the past year at the White House (the pandemic), the reporters covering the president voluntarily reduced our numbers on campus and in the briefing room. That made our job even harder, but we stayed safe. The White House Correspondents’ Association recently announced that not one reporter has transmitted the coronavirus to another reporter in the pool during the past year. Our infection rate remains lower than that of the general public and far better than that of the former Trump White House staff that rarely used masks or practiced social distancing.

Following strict protocols, the NFL has managed to have a relatively productive season and has been cheered for its efforts. The White House press corps has arguably managed to do better than the NFL, but we haven’t been cheered for our efforts. In fact, we’re being sanctioned despite them.

Even before the Biden administration set foot on the White House grounds, it formulated and instituted press restrictions to limit attendance to just 80 reporters, camera operators and technicians who must all be tested for coronavirus before they can enter the White House. Forty of those are expected to stay outside in the D.C. weather, unless they have to use the bathroom.

“I’m trading my risk of getting Covid for the risk of getting pneumonia,” one technician told me.

The Biden people say they want to demonstrate they are taking the pandemic seriously. But these new restrictions—unnecessary and poorly planned—are reminiscent of the Trump era: They ignore the fact that reporters have done a damn good job of policing themselves. We aren’t getting sick, and we’re taking steps to make sure we don’t. (Again, not one White House reporter has transmitted the virus to another.) What hurdles must we overcome for the Biden administration to see that?

In Biden’s White House every reporter allowed on campus will have to be tested prior to entry. That’s a good idea. But the arbitrary limit of 80 people is barely enough to get network television crews, members of the pool and a handful of independents through the door. (In pre-Covid Trump days, it wasn’t uncommon for about 350 press people to be on the grounds on a daily basis.) The Biden team put the WHCA in charge of determining which of their professional comrades can enter, based on a daily lottery.

Reporters in the presidential pool, which includes WHCA board members, are now guaranteed access to the briefing room and the president on a regular but reduced basis. Everyone else is shut out with no guaranteed direct access. The only slim hope—extremely slim hope—of getting into the briefing room is by winning the daily lottery to do your job. Members of the pool and the WHCA board seem happy with the arrangement—on Sunday, WHCA president (and Associated Press correspondent) Zeke Miller said as much to Brian Stelter on CNN—while many other reporters and WHCA members find the new policy draconian and unnecessary.

But the WHCA president did okay for himself. In each of Psaki’s first two daily briefings, Miller got to ask the first question, as well as additional questions. Meanwhile, some White House reporters haven’t been able to ask a single question of the president or his representatives for nearly a year.

Under the new rules, sitting in the Brady Briefing Room when no briefing is going on is a no-no. “Why can’t I?” one reporter asked no one in particular last Wednesday. “We’re social distancing and only using the same seats used during the briefings. What’s the problem?”

Miller angrily marched through the briefing room after Wednesday’s inauguration, seeming to act as the new administration’s police force, reminding everyone—“And you know who you are”—that we should leave or go outside. People ignored him, including an older television technician. “I’m not going out in the cold to make him or the administration happy,” said the same tech who quipped about Covid and pneumonia.

No reporter should be an agent of the state; no reporter has the right to tell another whether they can be present at the White House. The Secret Service already does that job quite well. When reporters police other reporters, it gives the impression those who are acting as cops have access others do not and made a Faustian deal to get it.

During her Friday impromptu gaggle Psaki said many of the senior staff have already been vaccinated at least once. So if the staff is relatively well protected, and if the correspondents have shown they can stay healthy even during the Trump days, why is a stricter attendance policy now necessary? If it is not based on fear and paranoia, is it based on a desire to control the press?

For four years I dealt with threats of violence and death because what I asked in briefings and what I wrote about Donald Trump enraged some people. Former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany went on national television in late September and called me deranged for merely asking the president a question. That led to more death threats in the last six weeks of the Trump administration than I’d received in the previous four years combined.

The current administration has a long way to go before it reaches that low-water mark. But this early move aimed squarely at limiting press access is similar to moves made by the Trump administration, and just as arrogant. For a president who claims to embrace honesty, transparency and unity, this move is also potentially hypocritical.

Psaki told me when I met with her briefly in her office last Wednesday the goal for the new administration is to accommodate “as many” reporters as safely as possible. I’ve heard that from every press secretary since Larry Speakes of the Reagan administration. To echo T.S. Eliot—between the idea and the reality falls the shadow, bub.

There are better options for a White House Covid protocol than increasing press restrictions. Test more of us. Allow us to police ourselves. Use the larger South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the very first coronavirus briefing took place last year, as a venue for briefings. The auditorium easily seats four or five times the number of reporters currently allowed in the Brady Briefing Room, even if we socially distance. It would also allow the White House staff to more easily socially distance themselves from us. Many reporters will come and go merely for the briefing.

Making those moves would nip in the bud criticism that the new Biden administration is either more paranoid than the Trump regime, or merely more subtle and successful at using the pandemic to manipulate and limit press coverage.

One of the most important questions I ever had the opportunity to ask a president would be impossible under current restrictions. I was not part of the press pool on September 23, 2020, when I showed up for my weekly visit to the White House. But when a pool member did not show up, I took the empty seat. On that day Trump called on me, and I asked him if “win, lose or draw” he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power.

His answer to that question was startling and set the stage for the insurrection 105 days later at the U.S. Capitol, and then more than 20,000 troops stationed in D.C. on Inauguration Day.

Under the Biden administration’s rules I wouldn’t have been able to ask that question, since I have no access to even stand by for an open seat in case someone doesn’t show up.

Fewer voices are not better for the United States. We need more. Coming out of the worst administration in history, limiting the press now is a recipe for disaster, divisiveness and disinformation.

I hope the Biden administration comes to its senses, and soon. President Biden said he would admit when he’s wrong and make corrections.

This may be his first test.