The CIA now believes The virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic It most likely originated in a lab, according to an assessment released Saturday that points the finger at China, even as it acknowledges that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion.
The finding is not the result of any new intelligence and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. He was declassified and released on Saturday on the orders of President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in as director on Thursday.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence that an investigation-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body. 19 Pandemic remains plausible,” an agency spokesman said in a statement, stressing that “they will continue to evaluate any available credible intelligence reports or open source information that may change the CIA’s assessment.”
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser in the Biden administration, ordered a classified review in December of US intelligence that had gathered on the origins of Covid-19, a current and former US official- American confirmed to CBS News. Sullivan convened a panel of outside experts to assess the intelligence and asked the intelligence community to review its data and form a conclusion. Both officials told CBS News there was no “smoking gun,” but a low-confidence assessment based on the same data. Burns ordered the review before leaving the CIA, citing high interest from policymakers.
By Han Guan / AP
The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of the evidence makes a laboratory origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency’s assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to that conclusion, suggesting that the evidence is weak, inconclusive or contradictory.
Previous reports on the origins of COVID-19 They have been divided over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, potentially by mistake, or whether it arose naturally. The new assessment is likely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence officials say it can never be solved because of one Lack of cooperation from the Chinese authorities.
Rather than new evidence, the conclusion was based on new analysis of intelligence about the spread of the virus, its scientific properties, and the work and conditions of China’s virology laboratories.
Lawmakers have pressed America’s spy agencies for more information on the origins of the virus, which led to lockdowns, economic disruption and millions of deaths. It’s an issue with significant domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic’s legacy.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Saturday that he was “satisfied that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab theory is most plausible explanation’ and congratulated Ratcliffe for declassifying the assessment.
“The most important thing now is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.
Chinese authorities have dismissed speculation about the origins of Covid as unhelpful and politically motivated. On Saturday, a spokesman for China’s US embassy said the CIA report lacked credibility.
“We are strongly opposed to the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and we again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” the embassy spokesman said, Liu Pengyu, in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
While the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists believe the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, likely raccoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or handling these animals in a market in Wuhan, where the first Human cases appeared in late November 2019.
Some official investigations, however, have raised the question of whether the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Two years ago, a Department of Energy report concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely source, although that report also expressed low confidence in the finding.
That same year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency believed the virus “very likely” spread after escaping from a lab.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, has said he also favors the lab leak scenario.
“Laboratory escape is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.
The CIA said it will continue to evaluate any new information that could change its assessment.
contributed to this report.