The US Central Intelligence Agency has released an assessment that it is more likely that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory than that it jumped from animals to humans.
A CIA spokesperson stated that "a research-related origin of the pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on available reports."
The decision to release this assessment is one of the first made by the new CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who was appointed by the new US President Donald Trump, who took office on Thursday, reports the BBC.
Ratcliffe has long favored the "lab leak" theory, arguing that the coronavirus most likely "leaked" from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The institute is located about a 40-minute drive from the Huanan Market, where the first cluster of infections was recorded.
In an interview with Breitbart News, Ratcliffe stated that he wants the CIA to abandon its neutral stance regarding the origins of the virus.
"One of the things I've talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on multiple fronts, and that goes back to the question of why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years, not providing an assessment of the origins of COVID-19," he said.
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