Germany's Spies: COVID Likely Started in a Lab

Nation's spy agency says the virus almost certainly came from a leak out of China
Posted Mar 13, 2025 7:05 PM CDT
Germany's Spies: COVID Likely Started in a Lab
Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan in China's Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021.   (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Germany's spy agency is in sync with the CIA in regard to the origins of COVID: Both think it likely originated in a lab in China. After its own analysis, Germany's BND foreign intelligence service thinks there's an 80% to 90% chance that the virus accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reports the BBC, citing German media reports. The assessment concluded that researchers there were conducting risky experiments in which viruses from nature get manipulated, per DW.com.

Those experiments, combined with lax security measures, likely resulted in the accidental leak, according to the BND. Its analysis was conducted back in 2020 but has only now been made public. China has consistently denied the allegations. The development comes after the CIA in January concluded that the virus was "more likely" to have come from a lab than from an animal. (More COVID-19 stories.)

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