The German government for years concealed an assessment by its Foreign Intelligence Service that a lab origin of COVID-19 was overwhelmingly likely, according to a Tuesday investigative report by two German newspapers.

New findings add weight to the theory that COVID-19 originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Experts point to lax security measures and allege China manipulated scientific journals to obscure the virus’s origins.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service concluded with 80-90% confidence that the coronavirus pandemic likely originated from a laboratory accident in China, according to an investigation by