The CIA has changed its position on the origin of COVID-19: what's learned

The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the deadly COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a leak in a laboratory, confirming the validity of a view that has been at the center of heated debate among scientists and politicians for years, reports UNN citing The Wall Street Journal.

The publication writes that in doing so, the CIA joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy in identifying a laboratory incident in Wuhan, China, as the likely source of the COVID virus. It has killed more than 1.2 million Americans and more than seven million people worldwide.

“The CIA estimates 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 reports,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement released Saturday.

The spokesman added that the judgment was “low confidence” and that the CIA would continue to evaluate “any available credible new intelligence reports or open source information that may change the CIA's assessment.

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The agency had previously taken the position that it did not have enough information to assess whether the virus was transmitted from animal to human or originated from laboratory error.

COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 and then spread rapidly around the world in 2020 and 2021 before vaccine development helped limit deaths. It was one of the worst pandemics in modern history.

But the origin of the virus still divides the U.S. intelligence community, largely because the Chinese government has not cooperated with international investigations. Four U.S. intelligence agencies have supported the theory of animal transmission with low confidence. The National Intelligence Council, a body of senior intelligence officers that reports to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has done the same.

John Ratcliffe, the new CIA director confirmed earlier this week by the Senate, has long said he believes the lab leak theory is the most plausible explanation. In an interview with Breitbart published Friday, Ratcliffe said investigating the matter was the top priority he wanted to pursue “from day one.

As the current head of the CIA, Ratcliffe declassified the new decision for public release.

Officials familiar with the matter said the agency has continued its work on the issue since the virus emerged. The agency said in a statement Saturday that “both research-related and naturally occurring scenarios for a COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.

The New York Times previously reported on the new decision.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, criticized the CIA statement as an example of political manipulation. “We strongly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus and once again urge everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” he said.

A former senior FBI scientist told The Wall Street Journal in December that a fresh look at the origins of the virus and intelligence community reports on the matter were needed.

In the final days of the Biden administration, Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser to President Joe Biden, called for a panel of outside experts to take a fresh look at the intelligence agencies' findings.

The debate over the origins of COVID has been heavily politicized at times. During his first term as president, President Trump blamed Beijing for what he called the “Chinese virus,” while his Democratic critics at the time said the White House was trying to divert attention from its management of the pandemic response.

Although the theory of natural transmission was initially the dominant view in the intelligence community, the debate over the origin of COVID has changed significantly over the past few years. A carrier animal that could have transmitted the virus has not been found, while experts have expressed concern that precautions to contain biological agents at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were inadequate.

The FBI, which was the first intelligence agency to point to the lab leak as a likely explanation, made its judgment with “moderate confidence,” while the opinions of the Department of Energy and the CIA were expressed with low confidence.

The CIA made its judgment with low confidence after former CIA Director William Burns instructed the agency to take a position on origins rather than remain agnostic, according to officials familiar with the matter, although he did not push for a specific conclusion. The updated analysis, which was not based on specific new intelligence, was published internally within the agency before Ratcliffe arrived, officials said.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, hailed the CIA for releasing its new judgment, which he called “the most plausible explanation for Covid's origins.

He added: “The most important thing now is to make China pay for spreading the plague around the world.