German Intelligence Report on Wuhan Lab Leak Suppressed by Merkel and Scholz

A confidential BND assessment from 2020 concluded with high probability that COVID-19 originated from a Wuhan lab accident, but the findings were withheld from the public by successive German chancellors.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, concluded in 2020 that there was an 80-95% likelihood that the COVID-19 pandemic originated from a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The intelligence report cited gain-of-function research and safety violations at the Wuhan lab as contributing factors to the outbreak, based on public data and an operation codenamed 'Saaremaa.'
Angela Merkel, then chancellor, reportedly chose to keep the findings confidential, and her successor Olaf Scholz also refrained from disclosing the assessment after taking office in 2021.
The suppressed report has resurfaced through investigations by German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit, raising questions about government transparency and accountability.
China continues to deny the lab leak theory, while international agencies, including the CIA, have also assessed the lab origin as plausible but inconclusive.