CIA concludes covid-19 probably originated from China Lab leak

The Central Intelligence Agency has thrown its weight behind the lab leak theory as the most plausible origin of Covid-19.

Without providing details on why the spy agency changed its position, the CIA informed reporters of its new position on Saturday, just two days after John Ratcliffe was sworn in as the new director.

“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open source information that may change the CIA’s assessment,” a CIA spokesman told reporters. per Politico.

The CIA’s shift in assessment does not appear to be based on any significant new evidence.

On his way out, former CIA director William Burns had urged the agency to take a position on the origins of Covid-19 rather than remain neutral, Sources told the Wall Street Journal.

Under Ratcliffe’s watch, the CIA decided to declassify this assessment.

Ratcliffe, 59, who served as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) during the first Trump administration, had long favored the lab leak theory.

Now, Langley joins the FBI and the Energy Department, which operates a number of labs and research facilities across the United States, in his assessment, agreeing that a lab leak is the most likely origin.

Four other agencies still support the zoonotic theory — that the highly contagious virus naturally mutated from bats to infect humans, likely via intermediaries such as pangolins. The National Intelligence Council, a group of top intelligence officials reporting to the DNI, also supported the zoonotic theory.

Key researchers including former Covid-19 Czar Dr. Anthony Fauci has favored the zoonotic theory.

Some virologists had conducted studies that concluded the virus could have come from a wet market in Wuhan where live animals were sold for food.

The exact animal that may have been the link to the virus coming to humans has never been identified.

Proponents of the lab leak theory that once had been scorned as a conspiracy theoryhas pointed to US-funded research on coronaviruses and bats that had been carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, close to the wet market where Covid-19 was first reported publicly.

The first known Cases of covid-19 in humans came in Wuhan in November 2019. Approximately 1.2 million Americans died in the Covid-19 pandemic, per data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ratcliffe had previously made it clear to Breitbart News that he also wanted the CIA to take a clear position on the origins of Covid-19.

“One of the things that I have talked about a lot is not making an assessment of the origin of Covid,” he said. “

“I’ve been on the record, as you know, saying 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, ” he added during his interview with the outlet.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) praised the CIA for its new assessment.

“I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation for the origin of Covid,” Cotton wrote on X.

“I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to release this conclusion. Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world. “

China has denied the lab leak theory.

The Post has contacted the CIA for comment.