The German spy agency “believed Covid probably started in the laboratory”

German foreign intelligence services believed that there was an 80-90% probability of the coronavirus accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab, German media said.

Two German newspapers say they have revealed details of an evaluation made by Spy Agency BND in 2020, but have never been published.

The Intelligence Service has indicated that the Wuhan Institute has conducted experiments in which the viruses are modified to become more portable for people for research, they say.

China reiterated its denial, saying that the cause “should be defined by scientists” – and indicated an investigation by the World Health Organization, which found that the laboratory theory of the laboratory was “extremely unlikely”.

There is no consensus on the cause of Covid’s pandemic.

Laboratory leakage hypothesis was hotly contested by scientistsIncluding many of them who say there is no final evidence to support it.

But once the controversial theory is gaining a position among some intelligence agencies – and BND is the most native that entertains the theory. In January, The American CIA said The coronavirus was “more likely” to leak from a laboratory than to come from animals.

According to by the time and Suddeutscher ZeitungBND met in Berlin in 2020 to examine the origin of the coronavirus in an operation called Project Saaremaa.

He estimated the laboratory theory as “probable”, although there was no final evidence.

BND also reveals indications that several violations of the safety rules have occurred in the laboratory.

The evaluation was commissioned by the Angela Merkel service, Chancellor of Germany at the time, but has never been publicly known.

According to the documents, the findings were shared with the CIA last fall.

In January this year, the CIA said that “the origin associated with the pandemic studies” is more likely than natural origin “based on the available reporting body” – although it warned that there was “low confidence” in this determination.

Both the BND and the Chancellor Olaf Scholz declined to comment.

China Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said in response: “We believe that tracking the origin of Covid-19 is a scientific question that should be determined by scientists with a scientific approach.

“The conclusion that the leakage of a laboratory is extremely unlikely from the team of a joint expert in China, who is on the spot after visits on the spot to the respective laboratories in Wuhan and in -depth discussions with researchers.

“This authoritative scientific conclusion is widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community.

“China firmly opposes any form of political manipulation on the issue of Covid-19 origin.”

The WHO investigation in early 2021 saw a team of scientists flying to Flain on a mission to examine the source of the pandemic.

After spending 12 days there, which included a visit to the laboratory, the team concluded that the laboratory theory was “extremely unlikely”.

But many have been questioning their discoveries since then, as a prominent group of scientists criticizing the WHO report that he did not accept the theory of the laboratory personality seriously enough-he was rejected in several pages of a report on several hundred pages.

Proponents of the natural origin hypothesis -which was supported in the WHO report -to say that Covid -19 appeared in bats and then jumped to humans, most likely through another animal or “hosteon”.

This hypothesis was widely adopted at the beginning of the pandemic, but over time scientists did not find a virus either in bats or in another animal that corresponds to the genetic composition of Covid-19, which causes some to doubt the theory.