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China on Monday rejected the possibility that the virus that caused COVID-19 leaked from a lab, after the CIA said it now favors the so-called lab leak theory over natural transmission.
“It is extremely unlikely that the pandemic was caused by a laboratory leak,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters. “This has been widely recognized by the international community, including the scientific community,” he said.
Mao added that the conclusion reached the joint team of the China-China field visits of the field visits.
Mao did not say where the virus originated, only that scientists had to make any judgments
The CIA on Saturday said it believes the virus came from a Chinese lab. The new assessment, although made with low confidence, left new fuel in the debate about the origins of COVID-19.
“The CIA assesses with low confidence that an investigation-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body. 19 Pandemic remains plausible,” an agency spokesperson told The Hill.
“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible intelligence reports or open source information that could change the CIA’s assessment.”
The swift release of the conclusion came just days after new CIA director John Ratcliffe was sworn in.
It also comes after the Biden administration ordered a further review of the origins of COVID-19, contributing to the split in the US government over whether the virus was introduced naturally or from a lab accident.
Federal agencies, including the intelligence community, have not reached a definitive conclusion.
In 2023, A classified report From the Department of Energy, it was concluded with little confidence, the virus originated in a laboratory. That same year, the The FBI also said A lab leak was more plausible than natural exposure.
In 2021, the intelligence community indicated that they were divided over the origins of the disease An unclassified summary report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said both the lab leaks theory and the naturally occurring theory were plausible.
Four agencies had assessed with low confidence that the virus jumped from animals to humans in the wild, while one agency assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident.
The decision to release the latest CIA assessment was made by Ratcliffe, who was sworn in on Thursday.
Intelligence agencies typically share their findings with a low, moderate, or high degree of confidence. It is unusual for intelligence agencies to release assessments with a low degree of confidence.
Ratcliffe has long favored the idea of lab leaks and in the past has questioned whether the CIA under President Biden had downplayed the theory for political reasons.
In one Interview with Breitbart News This was the first time since being sworn in that Ratcliffe indicated that he did not want the CIA to be “sitting on the sidelines” in the debate over the origins of Covid-19.
“One of the things I’ve talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on multiple fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the central intelligence agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years by not doing an assessment on the origins of Covid. That’s a day thing for me,” Ratcliffe said at the exit from the right.
But in a later one Interview with Fox Newssaid the decision to release a report was not political. Instead, it was an effort to renew trust and promote transparency in intelligence agencies.
“I had the opportunity on my first day to do an assessment of the public that took place in the Biden administration, so it cannot be accused of being political and the CIA has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has occurred. So much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan, so we will continue to investigate that moving forward,” he told Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“I think it was important for the American people to see an institution like the CIA step aside and be truthful about what our intelligence shows while also protecting us from adversaries like China if they cause or contribute to this,” he added.
Ratcliffe did not say there was any new evidence to contribute to the CIA’s analysis, and it is unclear what the latest assessment will mean for US-China relations. Some health experts still believe the origin doesn’t matter, and China’s lack of transparency makes it nearly impossible to find out for sure.
Republicans in Congress have said the virus escaped from a lab.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the new CIA assessment.
“I’ve said from the beginning that Covid originated in Wuhan Labs,” Cotton Said in a post On social platform X. “I am pleased that the CIA concluded in the final days of the Biden administration that the laboratory theory is the most plausible explanation for the origins of Covid and I commend Director Ratcliffe for fulfilling his promise to launch this conclusion. Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has blamed former federal infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, for having participated in what he says has been a massive cover-up. Even after Biden preemptively forgiven Fauci, Paul has insisted he will continue to investigate.
one 520 page report Released in December, the House Select Subcommittee on Pandemics concluded that the virus “most likely” escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. He also accused Fauci of pushing a false narrative about the origins of the virus.
