The Central Intelligence Agency has shifted its official stance on the origin of Covid-19, that the virus was “more likely” leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals.
The CIA has released a new assessment suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely to have originated from a lab leak than a natural source, though the agency maintains low confidence in this conclusion based on the current body of evidence.
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The assessment follows John Ratcliffe’s confirmation as CIA director under Donald Trump’s second administration. Ratcliffe, who previously served as director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 during Trump’s first term, emphasized that determining the origins of COVID-19 would be a top priority from “day one.”
In an interview with the right-wing outlet Breitbart, Ratcliffe stated that the CIA would take a more active role, asserting his belief that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
A CIA spokesperson, in a statement released Saturday, confirmed the agency’s position, citing its low-confidence assessment of a research-related origin for the pandemic.
The agency had not previously made any determination on whether Covid had been unleashed by a laboratory mishap or spilled over from animals.
“CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the spokesperson noted.
A US official told AFP the shift was based on a new analysis of existing intelligence ordered by previous CIA director William Burns, which was completed before Ratcliffe’s arrival this week.
Some US agencies, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy, support the lab-leak theory, albeit with varying levels of confidence, while most elements of the intelligence community lean toward natural origins.
Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis highlight that the earliest known Covid-19 cases emerged in Wuhan, China — a major coronavirus research hub — roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the nearest bat populations carrying similar SARS-like viruses.
