The intelligence agency says it has low confidence in the assessment and will continue to evaluate credible information.
The CIA has announced that the Covid-19 pandemic is “more likely” to have resulted from a laboratory leak than a natural event.
The CIA’s “low confidence” rating comes after John Ratcliffe was sworn in on Thursday as director of the top intelligence agency under US President Donald Trump.
The “CIA continues to assess that both research and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 pandemic remain plausible,” a spokesman said on Saturday.
“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible information on the new intelligence or in open source information that could change the CIA’s assessment.”
US media reported that the assessment was ordered under the administration of former US President Joe Biden and was completed before Ratcliffe took up his post.
Following the CIA’s announcement, three US agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy, publicly supported the theory that Covid-19 most likely escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
China’s embassy in Washington, D.C. rejected the CIA assessment, saying it “reaches misleading conclusions, throws dirty water on China, and leads to framing.”
“It is still an old routine of political manipulation of pursuing the source and has no credibility. The source of the virus is a complex scientific issue, and scientists and experts should find the answer through rigorous and meticulous scientific research instead of being judged by politicians,” Embassy spokeswoman Liu Pengyu said.
“We firmly reject the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus and once again urge everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories.”
Liu added that China has “always adhered to the spirit of science, openness and transparency” and pointed to a 2021 World Health Organization joint study that found a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.”
Four other US intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have said they believe the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission.
In an interview with Breitbart News on Friday, Ratcliffe had said that Covid’s origins would be a “day one” priority.
“I was, as you know, I think that our intelligence, our science and our common sense really determined that the origins of Covid were a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, the CIA has not made that assessment, or at least not made it public,” said Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term.
“So I’m going to focus on that and look at the intelligence and make sure the public is aware that the agency is going to be on the sidelines.”
