Germany’s foreign intelligence service believed there was a 80-90% chance that coronavirus accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab, German media say. Two German newspapers say they have uncovered details of an assessment carried out by spy agency BND in 2020 but never published.
The intelligence service had indications that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been carrying out experiments where viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research, they say.
China repeated its denial saying the cause “should be determined by scientists” - and pointed to a World Health Organization investigation which found the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.
The lab leak hypothesis has been hotly contested by scientists, including many who say there is no definitive evidence to back it up. But the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies - and the BND is the latest to entertain the theory. In January, the US CIA said the coronavirus was “more likely” to have leaked from a lab than to have come from animals.
Lab leaks/accidents are fairly common. This didn’t require some malicious intent or a “perfect storm” of events to occur. There are like 1 or 2 every year, that we know of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents
A study investigated and saw the following from 2000 to 2021 (https://www.chathamhouse.org/laboratory-accidents-and-biocontainment-breaches/scale-problem-today):
“… identified laboratory-acquired infections in 309 individuals, documented in 94 incident reports covering 51 pathogens of varying degrees of hazard. Some of these infections were fatal, and some resulted in the spread of laboratory workers’ infections to others in the community. In addition, the researchers identified 16 incidents of pathogen escape from biocontainment facilities during the period.”
And that’s not even including all the smaller incidents which adds up to about a hundred a year.
So a lab leak is not only plausible, it’s very likely. It requires no malice or conspiracy. And Wuhan actually has a lab that was studying the COVID virus. The communist party however has already covered up, so actual evidence is hard to get.
The conspiracy theory here is this.
Not at all. It’s the CCP’s MO. They probably didn’t even know where it exactly came from. But started covering up anyway. It’s a common theme. There was a chinese kindergarten, and rumours got around that the military was abusing the children in a basement. Instead denying it and starting an investigation, the government censored the whole thing, ordered parents to stay quiet and completely shut down the school. In the end it was just rumours, no evidence was ever found. But just in case they start covering up, almost as a reflex.
Cool campfire story