Arrival of President Trump changes US’s statement; Claims COVID-19 outbreak via Chinese Lab

Kathmandu: A foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, CIA, has made a new estimation regarding the outbreak of COVID-19.

The CIA analyzed the outbreak as a possibility of being leaked via a Chinese lab rather than coming from animals. But CIA is not fully confident regarding the claim. The statement claims to have “low confidence.”

The BBC cited a spokesperson as saying the research-related origin of COVID-19 sensed the possibility of the outbreak during the phase of research rather than being a natural spreading.

But China has been protesting it as a false claim. China claimed that the pandemic did not originate from a science laboratory.

China said the American government is trying to spread rumors regarding the origin of COVID-19.

The CIA’s new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday, made the first decision to release the assessment.

During President Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe was a director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe has been supporting the lab leak theory. He has been claiming the outbreak occurred at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Wuhan Institute is a distance of 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market, where the first cluster of infections was detected.

Breitbart News published an interview with Ratcliffe on Friday. In the interview, he said he wanted the CIA to disclaim its neutral stance regarding the origin of the virus and “get off the sidelines”.

Ratcliffe said that he had talked a lot about addressing the threat from China. He said the threat resulted in the death of millions of Americans.

Similarly, he questioned why the CIA had been dormant for five years and not initiated the assessment for finding the source of COVID-19. He said it was the first thing that the CIA must have done.

But officials told US media that the new assessment was not based on a new investigation and was a product before Trump took over the administration.

The review was reportedly ordered in the closing weeks of the Biden administration and completed before Trump took office on Monday.

Low Confidence

According to the review, on Saturday, is based on “low confidence.” This signals the intelligence supporting it is lacking, inconclusive, or inconsistent.

There is no consensus on the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some support a “natural origin” theory. The theory argues the virus spreads naturally from animals. It also claims that there is no involvement of any scientists or laboratories.

The scientists contested the lab leak hypothesis, including many who say there is no concrete evidence to back it up. And China dismissed the lab claim as Washington’s “political manipulation.”

However, the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies.

In 2023, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News his bureau assessed that “the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident”.

What Did WHO Say About the Coronavirus?

In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) published an investigative report on the origins of the coronavirus.

A WHO team traveled to China to conduct the investigation. The report detailed several aspects of the coronavirus pandemic.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated the report is a very good beginning, but it is not the end. WHO has yet to identify the source of the virus.

A team of 17 Chinese experts and 17 international experts prepared the report. The 120-page report presented four possible scenarios regarding the origin of the virus and its transmission to humans.

The virus spreads from animals to humans, another intermediary species being involved in the transmission from animals to humans, the virus reaching humans through food products, and the virus leaking from a laboratory, which was deemed unlikely are some of the theories in the outbreak of COVID-19.

Nepali version of the news story