The CIA has now said that the the coronavirus is “more likely” to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from a natural, animalic context, though the organization has cautioned that this is a “low confidence” certainty.
This find was revealed by Trump’s new CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
Ratcliffe has always said that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, just a 40-minute drive from the infamous Huanan wet market.
The conclusion was based on analyses about the spread of the virus and the conditions of the lab.
This comes as Trump antagonizes China in various ways — from the Panama Canal on. However and importantly, officials say that it’s neither a new assessment, nor new intelligence, but just the fruit of a report that was ordered under Biden.
“Low confidence” in security lingo implies that intelligence supporting it is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory, while the CIA concedes that both the animal and lab leak theories remain plausible.
While there are some reasons to believe that covid was indeed a lab leak, it’s a difficult and controversial claim to make unanimously, given the political implications involved.
Even now, this doesn’t bode well for US-China relations. But at least no agency has dared to claim that any leak happened in a context of genetic engineering or biological weaponry — accusations which would outrage China. If anything, covid from a lab leak would have been created for “research”.
Meanwhile, Trump has removed the United States from the World Health Organization and cast Anthony Fauci away. Ratcliffe will likely follow Trump’s bold attitude and be rather authoritative in the choices he makes as head of the CIA, although, as many point out, intelligence really containing the truth wouldn’t be easy to access.
