CIA's Low-Confidence Assessment Favors Lab Leak as COVID-19 Origin

Jan 25, 2025, 09:50 PM

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has updated its assessment on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, now favoring the theory that the virus likely originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China. This shift in stance, announced on Saturday, comes after CIA analysts reassessed existing evidence, focusing on conditions at Wuhan laboratories prior to the outbreak. The agency now holds a low-confidence assessment that a research-related incident is more probable than natural transmission, based on the available body of reporting. Officials noted that no new intelligence has emerged to prompt the shift; rather, the reconsideration is based on the same evidence that has been under analysis for months. Previously, the CIA had maintained that it could not conclusively determine the origin of the virus. The reassessment was initiated under former Director Bill Burns, with the declassification and release of the decision ordered by new CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The CIA continues to consider both research-related and natural origin scenarios plausible. This new position aligns the agency with previous assessments by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Energy, which also identified a laboratory leak as the probable source of the pandemic.