Germany’s spy agency believed in 2020 that there was an 80-90 per cent chance Covid leaked from a Chinese lab but details of the assessment were kept under wraps, according to German media.

The spy agency assessment's was based on an unspecified intelligence operation code-named "Saaremaa" as well as on publicly-available data. It had been commissioned by the office of Germany's chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, but never published, the report said.

German intelligence agency BND had assessed in 2020 that the possibility of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19 disease, originating in a Chinese laboratory was 80-95% but the German government blocked the release of the agency’s findings for nearly five years,