'80-90% chance of coronavirus accidentally leaking from Chinese lab', German spy agency again raises the issue of origin of Covid

There is an 80-90% chance that the coronavirus was accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab. According to German media, this is what Germany's Foreign Intelligence Service believes. A BBC report says that two German newspapers say they uncovered details of an assessment carried out by the spy agency BND in 2020, but it was never published.

The intelligence service had received indications that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting experiments in which viruses were modified to make them more infectious or transmissible to humans for research. According to German newspapers Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, the BND met in Berlin in 2020 to investigate the origins of the coronavirus in an operation called Project Sarema. It considered the lab leak theory probable, although it did not have concrete evidence.

The BND also found indications that there were safety violations at the lab. This assessment was carried out by the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the time but has never been made public until now. According to the papers, the findings were shared with the CIA in the autumn of last year.

There is no consensus on the cause of the Covid pandemic. The lab leak theory has been strongly opposed by scientists. Many scientists say there is no solid evidence to support this possibility. But the theory, once controversial, is gaining momentum again among some intelligence agencies. The BND is the latest agency to fuel it.

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China continues to deny lab leak theory

Let us tell you that China has consistently denied the theory of Covid leaking from the lab. It says that the cause of the coronavirus should be determined by scientists. China also pointed to the World Health Organization's investigation, which found that it was extremely impossible for Covid to leak from the lab. Let us tell you that in early 2021, a team of scientists under the WHO investigation went to Wuhan on a mission to investigate the source of the epidemic. After visiting the lab there and spending 12 days, the team concluded that the lab-leak theory is extremely unlikely. But since then many people have questioned their findings.

The theory of the origin of the coronavirus supported by the WHO report is that COVID-19 emerged in bats and then spread to humans. Meanwhile, an animal being the intermediate host was considered highly likely. In January, the US CIA said that the coronavirus was more likely to have leaked from a lab than come from animals.