The CIA has concluded in a new assessment that COVID-19 “probably” originated from a laboratory leak in China, marking a significant shift in the understanding of the pandemic’s origins.
The U.S. intelligence agency stated with “low confidence” that the virus leaked from a research facility, revising its previous stance that there was insufficient evidence to draw conclusions.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence that, based on available reports, it is more likely that the COVID-19 pandemic is of research origin than natural origin,” the agency announced on Saturday. “The CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural-origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
For the past four years, the U.S. intelligence community, comprising 18 agencies, has been investigating whether COVID-19 emerged naturally from a Wuhan fish market or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The CIA’s position now aligns with the FBI and the Department of Energy in attributing the virus’s origin to the Wuhan laboratory. However, the agency emphasized its “low confidence” in this assessment and stated it would continue evaluating new intelligence reports or open-source information that could alter their conclusion.
This assessment became public shortly after John Ratcliffe’s appointment as CIA director. In a Breitbart interview following his confirmation as President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the intelligence agency, Ratcliffe expressed his belief that intelligence and common sense “dictate that Covid’s origin is a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” He committed to ensuring “the public is aware that the agency [CIA] is going to get into the game.”
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz noted that those previously dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” for suggesting COVID-19 resulted from a laboratory leak were “right all along,” adding: “We can’t stop the next pandemic without understanding how the last one happened!”
According to a U.S. official who spoke to the Financial Times, Bill Burns, who headed the CIA during the Biden administration, directed the CIA assessment team to take a position on COVID-19’s source but did not influence the outcome. This directive coincided with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s instruction for the intelligence community to reexamine the pandemic’s origins as the Biden administration prepared to transition.
The U.S. official emphasized that the CIA was reviewing its assessment before Ratcliffe’s appointment as director.
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, stated: “I said from the beginning that Covid probably originated in the Wuhan laboratories. Communist China covered it up and the liberal media protected them. I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the most plausible explanation for the origin of Covid is the laboratory leak theory, and I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to announce this conclusion. The most important thing to do now is to make China pay for the disease it has unleashed on the world.”
The Chinese Embassy in Washington strongly opposed this characterization, stating: “The so-called U.S. report, without any concrete evidence, fabricates misleading conclusions, smears and stigmatizes China. This report is still an old routine of political manipulation to trace the source and has no credibility.”