The CIA now believes that the culpable virus of the COVVI-19 pandemic comes from a laboratory, according to an evaluation published on Saturday that issues its finger against China, even by detecting that the espionage company has “low confidence” in its own conclusion. .
The conclusion is not the result of new intelligence, and the report ended at the request of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. He demoted and released Saturday on orders from President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director.
“The CIA assesses with little confidence that an origin related to the investigation of the Covid-19 pandemic is more likely than an herbal origin founded on the reporting framework. Statement, noting that they will “continue to compare any to have credible intelligence reports or open-source data that can adjust the CIA’s assessment. “
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor of the Biden Administration, ordered a review classified in December of the US Intelligence Agencies that had met in the origins of COVID-19, a US CBS news officer. UU. form, Sullivan convened a panel of external experts to evaluate intelligence and asked the intelligence network to review their knowledge and form a conclusion. The officials told CBS News that there was not a new “smoking gun”, but an evaluation of low trust based on the same knowledge. CIA, raising the maximum interest of policy formulators.
The nuanced discovery suggests that the company believes that all the evidence makes a laboratory origin more like a herbal origin. But the signature of the firm assigns a low degree of confidence in this conclusion, which suggests that the evidence is poor , conclusive 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.
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.
China on Monday did not agree with the evaluation.
“The conclusion that a laboratory leak is incredibly fantastic has been affected through the Joint Mavens team in China, which founded the box in laboratories involved in Wuhan in the boxes,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao none. “This has been widely identified through the foreign network and the clinical network. “
U. S. lawmakers have tended to U. S. spy agencies to get more data on the origins of the virus, leading to a lockdown, economic disruption and millions of deaths. This is a consultation with national and geopolitical implications, while the global one continues to fight against the legacy of the pandemic.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Saturday that he was “thrilled that the CIA concluded in the final days of Biden’s management that the female lab theory is the ultimate credible explanation” and he Ratcliffe. Discover the assessment.
“Now the maximum is to make China pay insarness a plague in the world,” Cotton said in a statement.
The Chinese government has ruled out the hypothesis about the origins of COVID and politically motivated. On Saturday, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in China said the CIA report had no credibility.
“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigma of the virus source, and we call everyone to respect science and remain away from conspiracy theories,” said Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu, in an email sent to The Associated Press.
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 raccoon 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.
However, some official investigations have raised the question of whether the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. the conclusion.
That same year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said his firm believed the virus “probably” spread after escaping from a lab.
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, has said he favors the lab leak scenario, too.
“The laboratory escape is the only theory supported through science, intelligence and not the unusual sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.
The CIA said it would continue to compare any new data that might replace its assessment.