{"id":870,"date":"2025-01-26T06:39:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T07:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/?p=870"},"modified":"2025-01-26T08:25:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T08:25:47","slug":"cia-shifts-stance-on-covid-origins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/26\/cia-shifts-stance-on-covid-origins\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA shifts stance on Covid origins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The agency now believes \u201cwith low confidence\u201d that Covid-19 likely came from a lab leak<\/strong><\/p>\n

The CIA now believes it is \u201cmore likely\u201d<\/em> that Covid-19 originated from a lab-leak incident rather than a natural source, while cautioning that the conclusion is not final. <\/p>\n

In a statement on Saturday shared by multiple media outlets, a CIA spokesperson said the US agency \u201cassesses 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<\/em> However, the agency said both origin scenarios are possible, and that the evaluation could change as new data become available.<\/p>\n

The updated assessment comes after the confirmation earlier this week of John Ratcliffe as CIA director, following his nomination by US President Donald Trump. Ratcliffe has been a vocal supporter of the lab-leak version, calling it \u201cthe only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense.\u201d<\/em> Following the confirmation, Ratcliffe also said the CIA\u2019s assessment of Covid\u2019s origins would be a \u201cday-one thing for me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
US played \u2018substantial\u2019 role in causing Covid pandemic \u2013 ex-CDC chief<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Washington Post, citing sources, reported that the CIA\u2019s assessment was completed prior to Ratcliffe\u2019s swearing-in, but was declassified and made public at his direction.<\/p>\n

The heated debate over the origins of Covid-19, which caused a global pandemic that killed over 7 million people, has long been at the center of US politics. One main theory is that Covid-19 emerged from a natural source, specifically through zoonotic transmission from animals to humans. Another version claims that the virus accidentally escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China \u2013 the city where the pandemic first began. The Chinese government has rejected the lab-leak theory.<\/p>\n

The US authorities remain divided on the matter. The FBI and the Department of Energy have leaned toward the lab-leak theory, while other agencies, including some within the intelligence community, favor the natural origin theory.<\/p>\n

In November, Robert Redfield, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), claimed that Covid-19 was \u201cintentionally engineered as a part of a biodefense program,\u201d<\/em> suggesting that the US role in this process was \u201csubstantial\u201d<\/em> given that it funded the relevant research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The agency now believes \u201cwith low confidence\u201d that Covid-19 likely came from a lab leak The CIA now believes it is \u201cmore likely\u201d that Covid-19 originated from a lab-leak incident rather than a natural source, while cautioning that the conclusion is not final. In a statement on Saturday shared by multiple media outlets, a CIA…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}