The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the coronavirus pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment released on Saturday that points the finger at China even while acknowledging that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion.
The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA director William Burns. It was declassified and released on Saturday on the orders of president Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in as director on Thursday.
The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency’s assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.
Earlier reports on the origins of Covid-19 have split over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, potentially by mistake, or whether it arose naturally. The new assessment is not likely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence officials say it may never be resolved, due to a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities.
The CIA “continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 pandemic remain plausible”, the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.
Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on fresh analyses of intelligence about the spread of the virus, its scientific properties and the work and conditions of China’s virology labs.
Lawmakers have put pressure on America’s spy agencies for more information about the origins of the virus, which led to lockdowns, economic upheaval and millions of deaths. It’s a question with significant domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic’s legacy.
Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Saturday that he was “pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation” and he commended Ratcliffe for declassifying the assessment.
“Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.
Chinese authorities have dismissed speculation about Covid’s origins as unhelpful and motivated by politics. On Saturday, a spokesperson for China’s US embassy said the CIA report has no credibility.
“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press.
Ratcliffe later appeared on the Fox News Sunday Morning Futures program and said the release of the assessment was meant to “restore Americans’ trust in our own institutions”.
“The purpose of the CIA is to protect Americans – keep us safe from foreign threats and foreign adversaries,” Ratcliffe said. “But we also need to be truthful with Americans.”
While the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably racoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or butchering those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019.
Some official investigations, however, have raised the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Two years ago a report by the energy department concluded a lab leak was the most likely origin, though that report also expressed low confidence in the finding.
The same year then-FBI director Christopher Wray said his agency believed the virus “most likely” spread after escaping from a lab.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, has said he favours the lab leak scenario, too.
“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.
The CIA said it will continue to evaluate any new information that could change its assessment.
