
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
White House border czar Tom Homan announced a partial drawdown of federal immigration personnel in Minnesota, saying the move reflects “unprecedented cooperation” from local communities and state authorities following weeks of unrest tied to immigration enforcement operations.
U.S., Russian, and Ukrainian diplomats convened this week in Abu Dhabi for a second round of trilateral peace talks aimed at ending Moscow’s four-year war against Kyiv, marking a rare continuation of direct negotiations between the two sides.
In one of its first closely watched cases, Pakistan’s newly established Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) ruled that an underage Christian girl should remain with her “Muslim husband” despite concerns about her age and religious rights, Christians confirmed to Worthy News on Wednesday.
Horrifying accounts continue to emerge from Iran after last month’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests, with activists and rights groups describing scenes of extreme brutality and alleging killings that reportedly continued even inside hospitals and detention centers.
Indonesia has pledged to crack down on alleged stock manipulation and accelerate financial reforms to restore investor confidence after a sharp market selloff raised concerns about transparency in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Polish authorities on Tuesday detained a Defense Ministry official accused of spying for Russian and Belarusian intelligence services in one of the most significant espionage cases to surface within the government since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, officials confirmed.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met Tuesday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, underscoring deep skepticism in Israel and Washington over the prospects for a deal with Iran, even as diplomatic efforts continue ahead of planned talks later this week.