The CIA now believes The virus responsible for the Pandemic COVVI-19 Probably coming from a laboratory, according to an evaluation published on Saturday which points the finger in China, even by recognizing that the espionage agency has a “low confidence” in its own conclusion.
The conclusion is not the result of a new intelligence, and the report was completed at the request of the Biden administration and the former director of the CIA, William Burns. He was downgraded and released on Saturday on the orders of the choice of President Trump to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence than an origin linked to the search for the COVVI-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of relationships. The CIA continues to assess that the original scenarios linked to the research and natural pandemic of the COVVI-19 pandemic remain plausible, “said a spokesperson for the agency in a press release, noting that they will continue to Evaluate any credible or free information report available. Information that could change the evaluation of the CIA. »»
Jake Sullivan, National Security Administration of the Biden Administration, ordered a classified examination in December of the American intelligence services which had been gathered on the origins of COVID-19, a current and a former confirmed American official at CBS News. Sullivan summoned a panel of external experts to assess the intelligence and asked the intelligence community to review its data and form a conclusion. The two officials told CBS News that there was no new “smoking pistol”, but rather a low -confidence -based assessment based on the same data. Burns ordered the exam before leaving the CIA, citing high interest in decision -makers.
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The nuanced discovery suggests that the agency thinks that all of the evidence makes a laboratory origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency’s assessment assigns a low degree of confidence in this conclusion, suggesting that the evidence is deficient, not conclusive or contradictory.
Previous reports on the origins of COVID-19 separated if the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory, potentially by mistake, or if it was born naturally. The new evaluation is unlikely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence managers say that it may never be resolved, due to a Lack of cooperation from the Chinese authorities.
Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on new intelligence analyzes on the propagation of the virus, its scientific properties and the work and conditions of the Chinese virology laboratories.
China said on Monday that it disagreed with the evaluation.
“The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely improbable has been affected by the joint team of experts from China-who based on the field visits in laboratories concerned in Wuhan,” said the spokesperson for Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning. “This has been widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community.”
American legislators have put pressure on American spy agencies for more information on the origins of the virus, which led to locking, economic upheavals and millions of deaths. This is a question with important national and geopolitical implications while the world continues to fight against the inheritance of the pandemic.
The Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Saturday that he was “happy that the CIA concluded in the last days of the Biden administration that laboratory leak theory is The most plausible explanation ”and he recommended Ratcliffe to have sparked the evaluation.
“Now the most important thing is to make China pay to trigger a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.
The Chinese authorities have rejected speculations on the origins of Covid as useless and motivated by politics. A spokesman for the United States Embassy in China said on Saturday, the CIA report had no credibility.
“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigma of the virus source, and call everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” said the embassy spokesperson , Liu Pengyu in a statement sent by email to the Associated Press.
Although the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists think that the most likely hypothesis is that it has circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably raccoon dogs Washer, civilian cats or bamboo rats. In turn, infection spread to humans who manipulate or massacred these animals in a market in Wuhan, where the first Human cases appeared at the end of November 2019.
However, some official surveys have raised the question of whether the virus has escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Two years ago, a report from the energy department concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin, although this report also expressed low confidence in the conclusion.
The same year, FBI director Christopher Wray said his agency believed that the virus spread “most likely” after escaping a laboratory.
Ratcliffe, who was director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, said that he also promotes the laboratory leakage scenario.
“Laboratory flight is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” said Ratcliffe in 2023.
The CIA said it would continue to assess any new information that could change its assessment.
contributed to this report.