By Dan McCaleb | The Center Square
(Worthy News) – The COVID-19 virus “more likely” originated from a research lab in China, the CIA now says, though it has “low confidence” in its determination.
Multiple media outlets are reporting the CIA shifted its position from being undecided on the origin to saying it more likely came from the Wuhan lab rather than from human exposure to an infected animal such as a bat.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement, according to NBC News. “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
Other federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy and former FBI Director Christopher Wray, have said the Wuhan lab is the likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, but expressed a similar lack of confidence as the CIA.
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, leading elected officials across the U.S. and the world to issue stay-at-home orders that led to millions of job losses. More than 1 million Americans died from COVID-19.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Senate Democrats are preparing a renewed effort next week to limit President Donald Trump’s military authority, advancing a war powers resolution that would require congressional approval before any further U.S. action against Iran.
Talks at the White House between NATO chief Mark Rutte and U.S. President Donald J. Trump were expected to be overshadowed by concerns about the future role of the United States in the military alliance.
Hungary’s government offered support, mainly through intelligence, to Iran less than two weeks after Israel carried out pager detonations in September 2024 against the Hezbollah group, a report revealed Wednesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said all U.S. military objectives in Iran had been achieved, signaling what he described as a successful outcome of the conflict.
A Christian teenager was shot and killed in Pakistan’s volatile Punjab Province on Wednesday shortly after another person died when a truck rammed into a crowd of roughly 200 Christians, sources told Worthy News.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said a fragile ceasefire with Iran could hold if Tehran follows through on commitments to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while warning the situation remains uncertain.
Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court has upheld a nine-year prison sentence against Farid Mehralizade, a journalist with U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), rejecting his appeal in a case condemned by critics as unjust and seen as a test of press freedom in the former Soviet republic.