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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.
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