COVID-19 likely leaked from Wuhan lab, reports say Germany’s spies assessed

Germany's spy agency put at 80 to 90 per cent the likelihood that the coronavirus behind COVID-19 was accidentally released from a Wuhan lab, two German newspapers reported.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service in 2020 put at 80%-90% the likelihood that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic was accidentally released from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, two German newspapers reported on Wednesday.

According to a joint report by publications Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, Germany’s spying agency BND had indications that the institute had conducted gain-of-function experiments, whereby viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research purposes.

It also had indications that numerous violations of safety regulations had occurred at the lab, the papers said.

The spy agency assessment’s was based on an unspecified intelligence operation code-named “Saaremaa” as well as on publicly-available data. It had been commissioned by the office of Germany’s chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, but never published, the report said.

BND declined to comment. When asked about the report in a press conference, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz also declined to comment on Wednesday.

The papers reported that the assessment was, however, shared with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the autumn of 2024.

A CIA spokesperson said in January that the CIA has assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely to have emerged from a lab than from nature.

The CIA said at the time it had “low confidence” in its assessment and that both scenarios – lab origin and natural origin – remain plausible.