
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
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has claimed that European Union leaders were presented with plans to admit Ukraine into the bloc by 2027, warning that the move would divert billions of euros away from Central European nations ahead of the EU’s next long-term budget cycle.
A virus far deadlier than the coronavirus has resurfaced in India, with health officials confirming two cases of the highly lethal Nipah virus. The cases prompted authorities to rush to prevent it from spreading to other nations and, potentially, beyond the continent.
Don Lemon, a former anchor of the Cable News Network (CNN), has been detained for his involvement in a protest at a church in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the Justice Department confirmed.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, braced for more financial turmoil after stocks suffered their deepest two-day rout in nearly three decades, underscoring growing investor unease about policies under former general-turned-President Prabowo Subianto.
Hungary’s government under longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is preparing a legal challenge against the European Union’s decision to accelerate the phase-out of Russian oil and natural gas imports, the country’s foreign minister has confirmed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a high-level security consultation in Jerusalem on Thursday amid escalating international tension over a possible U.S. military strike on Iran, according to an official familiar with the meeting.
A partial government shutdown was narrowly avoided Thursday after Senate Democrats extracted concessions from the White House and congressional Republicans, forcing a last-minute restructuring of a major funding package just hours before the Jan. 30 deadline.