{"id":55777,"date":"2025-01-26T03:47:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T03:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=55777"},"modified":"2025-01-26T03:47:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T03:47:19","slug":"cia-says-covid-19-probably-leaked-from-chinese-laboratory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=55777","title":{"rendered":"CIA says Covid-19 probably leaked from Chinese laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=9880273c-8517-4502-abf0-e667319ea6bd\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The CIA has concluded that Covid-19 probably began as a leak from a laboratory in China in a new assessment of the origins of the pandemic that killed millions of people.<\/p>\n<p>The US intelligence agency said it concluded with \u201clow confidence\u201d that the Covid-19 virus had leaked from the research facility, in a shift of its previous position that there was insufficient information to reach a conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCIA 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,\u201d the agency said in a statement on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cCIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The US intelligence community \u2014 which is made up of 18 agencies \u2014 has been assessing the origin of Covid-19 for the past four years to determine if the virus emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan or whether it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the Chinese city. <\/p>\n<p>The CIA joins the FBI and energy department in concluding that the virus originated from the Wuhan lab. But it said it had \u201clow confidence in this judgment\u201d and would \u201ccontinue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information\u201d that could change its assessment.<\/p>\n<p>The new assessment was made public just days after John Ratcliffe was sworn in as CIA director. <\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Breitbart news after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead the intelligence agency, Ratcliffe said he believed that intelligence and common sense \u201cdictates that the origins of Covid was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology\u201d and would ensure that \u201cthe public is aware that the agency [CIA] is going to get off the sidelines\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>One US official said Bill Burns, CIA head during the Biden administration, had told the CIA team assessing the evidence to take a position on the origin of Covid-19, but did not dictate the outcome. <\/p>\n<p>Burns\u2019 directive came as Jake Sullivan, who served as national security adviser, ordered the intelligence community to take another look at the origins of the pandemic as the Biden team prepared to leave office.<\/p>\n<p>The US official stressed that the CIA had revised its assessment before Ratcliffe was sworn in as the new director.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve said from the beginning that Covid likely originated in the Wuhan labs. Communist China covered it up and the liberal media covered for them, said Tom Cotton, the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m pleased the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab-leak theory is the most plausible explanation of Covid\u2019s origins, and I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to release this conclusion. Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese embassy in Washington said it strongly opposed the \u201cpoliticisation and stigmatisation of the source of the virus\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe so-called report of the United States, without any substantial evidence, concocts misleading conclusions, throws dirty water on China and engages in framing. It is still an old routine of political manipulation of tracing the source and has no credibility,\u201d the embassy said.<\/p>\n<p>The new CIA assessment change comes just over one week after Trump held his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since at least 2021. While many foreign policy experts had expected Trump to take a tough line on China \u2014 particularly over trade \u2014 in his first week in office, the president has so far held off taking any harsh measures against Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Fox News this week, Trump said that while tariffs gave him \u201ctremendous power\u201d over China, he would \u201crather not have to use it\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He also signed an executive order postponing the deadline for the Chinese owner of TikTok to divest the popular video app to avoid a ban in the US.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the CIA\u2019s assessment while flying on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump did not comment on the detail, only saying: \u201cYou have a good man there, a very good man in John\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Ratcliffe. I\u2019d rather have you ask him that question than me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/9880273c-8517-4502-abf0-e667319ea6bd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The CIA has concluded that Covid-19 probably began as a leak from a laboratory in China in a new assessment of the origins of the pandemic that killed millions of people. The US intelligence agency [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-55777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CIA says Covid-19 probably leaked from Chinese laboratory | Innodebt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The CIA has concluded that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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