Hungarian journalists accuse gov’t of censoring COVID reporting

In an open letter, reporters say officials are making it impossible to document the world’s deadliest outbreak.

Hungarian journalists have accused the government of putting lives at risk by barring the media from covering the full extent of what is now the world’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak. In an open letter published by most of the country’s independent news outlets on Wednesday, reporters said they had been blocked from hospitals and barred from speaking to medics, making it impossible to alert the public to the crisis. Hungary, home to 10 million people, reported 302 deaths on Tuesday, its highest since the start of the pandemic, and now has the highest weekly toll per capita in the world.