{"id":51563,"date":"2025-01-25T22:06:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T22:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report"},"modified":"2025-02-08T23:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T23:46:46","slug":"cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report","title":{"rendered":"CIA suggests lab leak likely origin of COVID-19: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>The CIA now supports the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated from an accidental lab leak in China, rather than a natural transmission from a wet market, according to a New York Times report on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The CIA\u2019s shift toward favoring the lab leak theory as the origin of the pandemic is not based on new intelligence but on a reassessment of existing evidence, officials familiar with the matter said, the Times reported.<\/p>\n<p>The report indicated that the agency\u2019s analysis includes a closer examination of conditions at high-security laboratories in Wuhan, China, prior to the outbreak.<\/p>\n<p>A CIA spokesperson noted that other theories remain plausible and emphasized that the agency continues to evaluate any credible new intelligence, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>The CIA has long maintained uncertainty about whether the pandemic originated from human exposure to an infected animal or a potential incident at a research lab in China.<\/p>\n<p>New CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the US Senate earlier this week, approved the declassification of the agency\u2019s new assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Ratcliffe has long maintained that the virus likely emerged from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<\/p>\n<p>After his confirmation Friday, he said in an interview that one of his initial priorities was having the agency release a public assessment of the pandemic\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Lesotho<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The CIA now supports the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated from an accidental lab leak in China, rather than a natural transmission from a wet market, according to a New York Times report on Saturday. The CIA\u2019s shift toward favoring the lab leak theory as the origin of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":51562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[5325,1795,245,1715],"class_list":["post-51563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-cia","tag-covid-19-5","tag-lesotho","tag-wuhan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>CIA suggests lab leak likely origin of COVID-19: Report - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The CIA now supports the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated from an accidental lab leak in China, ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CIA suggests lab leak likely origin of COVID-19: Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The CIA now supports the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated from an accidental lab leak in China, ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-25T22:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-08T23:46:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/01\/sm_1737832694.692784.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"864\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"486\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"CIA suggests lab leak likely origin of COVID-19: Report\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-25T22:06:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-08T23:46:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\"},\"wordCount\":250,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/01\/sm_1737832694.692784.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"CIA\",\"COVID- 19\",\"Lesotho\",\"Wuhan\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cia-suggests-lab-leak-likely-origin-of-covid-19-report\",\"name\":\"CIA suggests lab leak likely origin of COVID-19: Report - 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