Merkel denies covering up report on Covid-19 origins

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel denied Thursday that she had covered up an intelligence report concluding that a Chinese laboratory leak was the likely source of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The Chancellor rejects the accusation very clearly," her office said in a statement sent to the German Tagesspiegel daily.

The weekly Die Zeit and Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily had reported that Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, had in 2020 judged the probability of a Wuhan lab leak being responsible for the pandemic to be between 80 and 95 percent.

Having commissioned an investigation, Merkel then prevented the results from being published, the newspapers reported, as did her successor, the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who took office in December 2021.

The authorities were reportedly keen to avoid sowing panic amongst the population and also feared stoking a diplomatic crisis with Beijing.

Merkel refused to be drawn on the detail of the allegations and directed enquiries to the current chancellery, which keeps government archives.

Jens Spahn, who was Germany's health minister at the height of the pandemic, denied knowledge of the findings.

"I've only heard about it through the media," he said on the RTL-Germany television channel.