The CIA today revealed its belief that COVID-19 likely leaked from a Chinese laboratory after years of denial under the Biden administration.
An agency spokesperson said Saturday that they now prefer the laboratory theory.
Officials said there is no new evidence behind their change of heart – it is based on the same evidence they have been considering for months.
“The CIA estimates with little confidence, based on available reporting, that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin.
“The CIA continues to assess that both investigative and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency said in an announcement Saturday.
The spokesperson added that they have “little confidence in the verdict” and would continue to evaluate any new intelligence or relevant information.
In announcing their changed position, the CIA joined the FBI and the Energy Department in identifying its cause as a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has faced criticism over its research into bat coronaviruses and alleged security lapses around the time the pandemic began.
Vice President J.D. Vance swears in John Ratcliffe as CIA director in the vice presidential ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington
This file photo taken on February 23, 2017 shows Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli at the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province
Under Biden and COVID czar Anthony Fauci, the administration was convinced that the lab idea was nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s newly sworn-in CIA director, has long been convinced that the virus came from a laboratory.
Ratcliffe testified before the House Select Subcommittee in 2023 that he did not feel the agencies were completely honest when it came to the origins of the virus.
When he spoke, he said he and other Trump officials had encountered “unlawful roadblocks” in investigating its cause.
In an interview with Breitbart after his Senate confirmation on Friday, Ratcliffe said one of his first priorities was for his agency to conduct a public assessment of the origins of the pandemic.
He said: ‘One of the things I’ve been talking a lot about is tackling the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been on the sidelines has stood. failed to pass judgment on the origins of COVID for five years.
‘That’s the first day for me. I have stated, as you know, that I think our intelligence, our science and our common sense all really dictate that the origin of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Former CIA Director William Burns had told analysts that the agency should express an opinion rather than remain neutral, but did not express a preference, a source said. NBC.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan is seen here in 2021 as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19
Researchers from Australia and Arizona published an analysis last year saying the lab leak most likely came from a laboratory.
They used a risk assessment tool to determine the likelihood that the virus had an ‘unnatural’ or ‘natural’ origin.
The team compared the characteristics of the virus and the pandemic using eleven criteria that analyzed things such as the rarity of a virus, the timing of a pandemic, the infected population, the spread of a virus and the unexpected symptoms of a virus.
Based on the nature of Covid, researchers assigned a score to each category: less than 50 percent meant the pandemic would be classified as a natural outbreak, but 50 percent or more would mean the pandemic was an unnatural outbreak. Covid received a score of 68 percent.
More than 1.2 million Americans have died since the pandemic began in late 2019, with more than seven million dying worldwide.
China has repeatedly accused the US of trying to “smear” Beijing with false claims about the origins of the virus.