The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said Saturday, Jan. 25, that the COVID-19 pandemic “more likely” started with a lab leak rather than originating from animals, according to its latest analysis. The agency said, though, it would continue evaluating any new intelligence reporting.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement.
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For years, the CIA said it could not conclude the origins of the virus that killed more than one million Americans and over seven million people worldwide.
However, in the final weeks of the Biden Administration, former national security adviser Jake Sullivan ordered a new review of the virus’ origins and former CIA director Bill Burns told the agency it needed to take a side.
The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made under the agency’s new Trump-appointed director, John Ratcliffe, who took over the CIA on Thursday, Jan. 23.
While Ratcliffe has believed COVID-19 started in a lab in Wuhan, China, agency officials told The New York Times that its analysis was in the “works for some time” and did not “bend its views to a new boss.”
“The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was reached by the China-WHO joint expert team based on field visits to relevant laboratories in Wuhan.”
Mao Ning, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman
China refuted the CIA’s claim in a statement Monday, Jan. 27. “The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was reached by the China-WHO joint expert team based on field visits to relevant laboratories in Wuhan,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. “This has been widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community.”
The CIA joins other agencies, like the FBI and the Energy Department, in believing the coronavirus most likely came from a lab leak and not from an infected animal at an outdoor market, which other intelligence agencies have favored.
The FBI and Energy Departments differ, however, on which labs they believe started the leak.
