More than two dozen Hungarian media outlets called Wednesday to be allowed to report from inside hospitals and to interview healthcare workers, after months of restricted access. An open letter addressed to the government and chief physician and signed by 28 newsrooms asked that journalists be admitted to Covid-19 wards and vaccination centres as the country struggles with a third wave of the coronavirus. It also asked that healthcare workers be allowed to speak freely about their concerns regarding hospital conditions and for press conferences to take place in which journalists can ask questions directly, instead of having to submit them beforehand. The signatories said the current lack of information was indirectly worsening the pandemic. "With real reporting from inside hospitals blocked, many people are still minimising the dangers of the epidemic," the letter said. In a response on social media, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs dismissed the arguments, saying that personnel kept the public updated daily. He accused left-leaning outlets of spreading "fake news" and "denigrating the Hungarian health services". "Hospitals are built to care for people, not for cameramen... Hungarian hospitals and the doctors and nurses working there are functioning at superhuman levels. Let them work!" Kovacs said. On Wednesday, 302 people were recorded as having succumbed to the virus, a record one-day death toll. The country of 9.8 million currently has the world's highest coronavirus mortality rate, with 33 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants over the past 14 days. The ferocious third wave is hitting the country despite 20 percent of the population having already been vaccinated thanks to doses bought from Russia and China. An analysis by the Valasz news site put the high death rate down to a combination of factors, including infections going undetected through insufficient testing, restrictions being imposed too late and the weakness of Hungary's underfunded and emigration-hit health system. Since his return to power in 2010, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been criticised by EU institutions and by NGOs for undermining the rule of law and press freedom. In recent years most independent outlets have either gone out of business or been bought by government allies while receiving lucrative flows of state advertising. State-run media outlets have meanwhile been accused of becoming government propaganda outlets. mg/anb/bg/mm/jsk/wai