U.S. News & World Report, "German Spy Agency Concluded COVID Virus Likely Leaked From Lab, Papers Say"
Summary
A Reuters article published by U.S. News & World Report on March 12, 2025, reporting that Germany's foreign intelligence service in 2020 put at 80%-90% the likelihood that the coronavirus was accidentally released from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to two German newspapers. Per the joint report by Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, the BND assessment drew on an intelligence operation code-named Saaremaa and publicly-available data, was commissioned by the office of Angela Merkel, chancellor at the time, and was never published. The BND and outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment. The article also cites the CIA's January assessment, made with low confidence, and China's statement that the institute never carried out gain-of-function research on coronaviruses.
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“U.S. News & World Report, ‘German Spy Agency Concluded COVID Virus Likely Leaked From Lab, Papers Say.’”
Original at www.usnews.com. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/u-s-news-world-report-german-spy-agency-concluded-covid-virus-likely-l-9610ce3801/
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German Spy Agency Concluded COVID Virus Likely Leaked From Lab, Papers Say By Reuters | March 12, 2025 By Reuters | March 12, 2025, at 10:34 a.m. German Spy Agency Concluded COVID Virus Likely Leaked From Lab, Papers Say More Reuters A woman receives a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Police hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, January 5, 2023. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/ File Photo FRANKFURT (Reuters) - 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. MORE: Places the U.S. Government Warns Not to Travel Right Now China’s government says it supports and has taken part in research to determine COVID-19’s origin, and has accused Washington of politicizing the matter, especially because of efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate. Beijing has said there was no credibility to claims that a laboratory leak likely caused the pandemic. China's foreign ministry said last month that the Wuhan Institute of Virology never carried out any gain-of-function research on coronaviruses and that it was not involved in the creation or leakage of the COVID-19 virus. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Editing by Angus MacSwan) Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters . Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025 Tags: infectious diseases , United States , Coronavirus , Europe , Germany Read More Galleries America 2024 The Best Political Cartoons on Joe Biden Photos Photos: President Trump's First 100 Days Photos Picturing This Week in History Photos Photos You Should See - March 2025 U.S. News Decision Points Your trusted source for the latest news delivered weekdays from the team at U.S. News and World Report. Sign in to manage your newsletters » Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S. News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .
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