COVID-19 likely leaked from Wuhan lab, reports say Germany’s spies assessed
Back in 2020, Germany’s BND spy agency quietly pegged the odds at 80%-90% that COVID-19 sprang from a mishap at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, two German papers revealed Wednesday. Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung report the BND’s sleuthing—via a covert mission called “Saaremaa” and open-source intel—pointed to gain-of-function experiments gone wild and a lab riddled with safety lapses. Ordered by Angela Merkel’s office, the assessment was hushed up, gathering dust until now.
Neither the BND nor Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who’s on his way out, would touch the story Wednesday. The tip-off hit the CIA’s desk last autumn, echoing its own “low confidence” lean in January toward a lab origin over nature’s handiwork. China’s bristling, rejecting the leak idea as a U.S.-fueled smear and denying any viral tinkering at Wuhan. As the world marks five years since the pandemic’s chaos, the truth remains tantalizingly out of reach.