CIA shifts assessment on Covid origins, saying lab leak likely caused outbreak
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The CIA said Saturday it has shifted its previous assessments and has concluded that it’s likely the Covid-19 virus was leaked from a Chinese lab before it became a global pandemic but added that the agency had “low confidence” in its judgment.
The CIA said Saturday it has shifted its previous assessments and has concluded that it’s likely the Covid-19 virus was leaked from a Chinese lab before it became a global pandemic but added that the agency had “low confidence” in its judgment.
“CIA assesses 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 reporting,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement. “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
The spokesperson added that the agency has “low confidence in this judgement” and will continue to evaluate any new intelligence reporting or relevant information.
A Covid -19 vaccine booster shot is administered in Freeport, N.Y., in November 2021.Steve Pfost / Newsday via Getty ImagesFor years, the CIA has said it was unclear whether the Covid pandemic emerged from human exposure to an infected animal or from an event at a research lab in China.
U.S. intelligence agencies and other government departments have been divided over the origins of the virus. The FBI and the Energy Department have said it was likely the virus was the result of a lab leak, while other agencies assessed that natural human exposure to an infected animal was the most likely scenario. The CIA had been agnostic until now.
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