German intelligence suggests COVID-19 likely escaped from Chinese lab

Germany's foreign intelligence service concluded as early as 2020 that the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 likely escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, assigning an 80-90% probability to the theory, according to a newly surfaced report (via Reuters).

The assessment, never made public but shared with the United States Central Intelligence Agency in 2024, was based on classified intelligence and public data, suggesting safety violations and controversial virus-enhancing experiments at the Chinese lab.

While China has firmly rejected such allegations, the matter remains politically charged, with intelligence agencies in the United States and beyond still divided on whether the pandemic stemmed from a lab accident or a natural spill over.