The CIA has identified a lab leak in China as a more likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The press secretary of the intelligence agency stated this, as reported by Ukrinform, citing BBC.

“Based on the available data and investigation materials, a link to laboratory research regarding the origin of the pandemic is considered more likely than natural origins,” the publication quotes the press secretary, whose name is not disclosed.

However, the official emphasized the “low confidence” of the CIA in this conclusion, indicating that the intelligence data underpinning it are insufficient, unconvincing, or contradictory, and thus both scenarios, lab and natural origins, remain plausible.

The decision to release the CIA's assessment of the causes of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the first made by John Ratcliffe, who was appointed as director of the agency on Thursday.

Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence during President Donald Trump's first term, believes that the COVID-19 pandemic was most likely caused by a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China's Hubei province, where the pathogens of the dangerous infection were first identified at a city seafood market.

Earlier on Friday, in an interview with the media, Ratcliffe stated that he wants the CIA, which had refrained from publicly announcing its conclusions regarding the origin of the coronavirus, to finally disclose them.

“For me, this is a first-day question. I have spoken a lot about the need to address the threat from China... and specifically, to answer the question of why millions of Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency sat on the sidelines for five years avoiding making assessments about the origin of the COVID-19 coronavirus,” Ratcliffe said.

According to him, “our intelligence, our science, and our common sense indicate that the cause of the COVID pandemic is a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

At the same time, officials informed American media that the new assessment is not based on new intelligence data and emerged at the end of President Joe Biden's term, who ordered an additional review in the final weeks of his administration.

Discussions about the origin of COVID-19 continue, as neither theory—whether it be a lab leak or natural causes—has convincing evidence. Chinese authorities reject all assumptions about a lab leak and accuse the United States of manipulation and politicization of the issue.

As reported by Ukrinform, the committee in the U.S. Congress, led by Republicans, supported the theory that a lab leak caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a report published at the beginning of December last year, the Special Committee of the House of Representatives on the coronavirus crisis stated that the coronavirus “most likely originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” citing factors such as the biological characteristics of the virus and illnesses among researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the fall of 2019.

It was noted that the 520-page report of the subcommittee took two years to prepare, and its authors hope that their work “will serve as a roadmap for Congress, the executive branch, and the private sector to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”

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