The Central Intelligence Agency said COVID-19 likely originated from a lab leak in China in a Saturday statement, pivoting from a previously neutral stance just a few days after Director John Ratcliffe was sworn in, multiple outlets report.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” a CIA spokesperson shared in a statement to NBC News.
“CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
Ratcliffe said he supported theories that the virus was developed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China prior to his new post.
“I’ve been on record, as you know, in saying I think our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all really dictates that the origins of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Ratcliffe, a former director of national intelligence told Breitbart on Thursday.
“But the CIA has not made that assessment or at least not made that assessment publicly. So I’m going to focus on that and look at the intelligence and make sure that the public is aware that the agency is going to get off the sidelines.”
President Trump has previously referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” in tweets and supported similar rhetoric.
China has denied all ties to manufacturing the virus intentionally but intelligence officials are still unaware of its origin.
“As President Trump deals with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping], he needs to be armed with the very best intelligence and to be able to talk about China in a way that if they caused or contributed to the death of a million Americans, the president needs to be armed with that,” Ratcliffe said in the Breitbart interview.
Some scientists believe COVID-19 could have developed naturally, differing from theories of a lab leak.
