COVID-19 most likely originated from a laboratory.

The CIA has said for years that it does not have enough information to conclude whether the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic emerged naturally from a market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research laboratory.

But this week the agency released a new assessment that analysts are now leaning toward the laboratory origin theory, The New York Times reports.

This analysis began during the administration of previous President Joe Biden, but it was made public by the new CIA Director John Ratcliffe. According to the publication:

• There is no new intelligence behind this change in assessment of the causes of the coronavirus. It’s likely based on the same evidence the agency has been chewing on for months;
• The CIA made its new assessment with “low confidence,” meaning the intelligence on which it is based is fragmentary and incomplete;
• However, according to people familiar with the intelligence agency’s work, the analysis is based in part on a closer look at conditions at high-security laboratories in the Wuhan province of the pandemic outbreak.

At the same time, a CIA spokeswoman said that another theory also remains plausible and that the agency will continue to evaluate any new credible intelligence.

Some U.S. officials say the debate doesn’t really matter: The Chinese government hasn’t bothered to regulate its markets or monitor its laboratories. But others argue that this is an important intelligence and scientific question, the newspaper notes.

John Ratcliffe, the new director of the CIA, has long supported the hypothesis of a data leak from the laboratory. He said this is an important piece of intelligence that needs to be understood and has implications for US-China relations. Ratcliffe promised to make the origins of COVID-19 a priority.

Under the Biden administration, the intelligence community has leaned toward the theory that the virus originated in the marketplace.

The publication notes that senior intelligence officials in the Biden administration say that no intelligence information was withheld in this matter and insist that politics did not influence the preliminary analysis.

They say there are strong logical arguments for both theories, but the conclusive intelligence simply isn’t there.

• To confirm the natural origin theory, intelligence officials must find the animal that transmitted the virus to humans, or find a bat that was the likely ancestor of the coronavirus that causes COVID;
• similarly, to confirm a virus leak from a laboratory, intelligence needs to find evidence that one of the laboratories in Wuhan was working on the progenitor virus that directly led to the epidemic;
• however, no evidence was found for either theory.

But Mr. Ratcliffe has promised more aggressive action by the CIA, and it is possible that he will order infiltration of laboratories in Wuhan or the Chinese government in search of information, the newspaper notes.

However, the publication’s employees in intelligence circles note that it is most likely that answers to the question of the origin of the virus will be provided by a scientific breakthrough, and not by intelligence work.

By this time, two American agencies – the FBI and the Department of Energy – believed that a leak in the laboratory was more likely. However, their theories differ:

• The FBI believes the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology;
• The Energy Department is betting on another lab, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control;
• It is not yet known whether the CIA believes that one laboratory or another was the more likely source of the virus.

Source: The New York Times

Source: Racurs

David

I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.