The intelligence agency says it has ‘low confidence’ in assessment and will continue to evaluate credible information.

Backs Lab Leak Theory for COVID-19, but Confidence Remains Low By India Edwards HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, (HealthDay News) -- After years of speculation, the CIA has weighed in yet again: A lab leak is now considered the likely origin of the COVID pandemic.

China says it's "extremely unlikely" that COVID-19​ came from a lab, after the CIA said it believed​, though with low confidence, that it did, rather than from natural transmission.

The CIA, now under new management, has declared that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid “most likely” originated and then leaked from a lab at Wuhan in Communist China. The Central Intelligence Agency previously said that two explanations were plausible,

The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin.

The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is "more likely" to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. But the intelligence agency cautioned it had "low confidence" in this determination.

Robby Soave delivers radar on the C.I.A. agreeing that a lab leak from Wuhan, China, is most likely cause of the Covid-19 pandemic. #China #LabLeak #Covid-19