The CIA said on Saturday that it now assesses that a lab leak from communist China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic that upended the world several years ago.
The announcement came after CIA Director John Ratcliffe was overwhelmingly confirmed by the U.S. Senate this week.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a neutral origin based on the available body of reporting,” the agency said in a statement. “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
“We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment,” the statement added.
The New York Times reported that the decision to reassess the origins…
