The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is "more likely" to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. 

But the intelligence agency cautioned it had "low confidence" in this determination. 

A spokesperson said that a "research-related origin" of the pandemic "is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting".

The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made by the CIA's new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday. 

Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during President Trump's first term, has long favoured the lab leak theory, claiming Covid most likely came from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9qjjj4zy5o

Robert Redfield, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has claimed that Covid-19 was artificially developed, and that the US played a “substantial” role in starting the pandemic.

Redfield, who led the agency under the administration of US President Donald Trump, made the claim in an interview that was released on November 14, but only drew media attention this week.

Speaking to author and podcaster Dana Parish, he suggested that the virus was “intentionally engineered as a part of a biodefense program.” “When you look at the accountability for China, their accountability is not in the lab work and the creation of the virus,” but in their failure to quickly report the incident to health authorities worldwide including the CDC, when they realized the virus was on the loose, he said.

However, the US “role was substantial,” he added. “They funded the research, both from NIH [National Institutes of Health], the State Department’s USAID and the Defense Department.”

According to the former CDC chief, the “scientific mastermind behind the research” was Dr. Ralph Baric, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on coronaviruses.

Redfield suggested that the professor, who works at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was “very involved in this research.” 

“I think he probably helped create some of the original viral line”, Redfield said, admitting he did not have any proof. “I think there is a real possibility that the virus’s birthplace was Chapel Hill.”

Redfield previously said the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more than seven million people worldwide and caused a global economic downturn, most likely started with a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and suggested that the debate on the virus’s origins was “squashed.” He has also criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for failing to hold Beijing accountable.

One of the prevailing theories of the origin of the Covid pandemic is that the virus was transmitted to humans from an animal, possibly a bat, at a food market. China has maintained that the virus is of natural origin, and has dismissed the laboratory leak theory as an attempt to smear the country for political reasons.

https://www.rt.com/news/607966-us-covid-origin-claim/

BUT IS THE CIA TELLING US THE FULL STORY?.... THE CHINESE HAVE MAINTAINED THAT THE VIRUS DID NOT ESCAPE FROM A WUHAN LAB... SO WHERE DID THIS "AMERICAN MADE VIRUS" SENT TO A WUHAN LAB ESCAPE FROM...?

THE LOGICAL AND COMMON SENSE ANSWER WAS PROVIDED IN 2019 BY THE CHINESE AND POSTED ON YD:

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhao has demanded US authorities reveal what they’re hiding about the origins of Covid-19, going as far as to suggest the coronavirus may have been brought to China by the US military.

Pointing to a video of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield apparently admitting the US had several deaths from Covid-19 before they were able to test for it, Zhao called on the American watchdog to come clean in a tweet posted on Thursday.

“It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” Zhao suggested, calling for the CDC – and the US in general – to “be transparent” and share what they know about where and when “Patient Zero” was first diagnosed.

In the video, Redfield acknowledged that some cases of coronavirus were misclassified as influenza as the medics did not have an accurate test for the new epidemic at the time. He did not elaborate on when these misdiagnosed cases first appeared – saying only that “some cases have been diagnosed that way.”

In the absence of any patients’ details or chronology of deaths, speculation has swirled. Zhao’s “theory” in particular focused on the military delegation that traveled to Wuhan in October for the Military World Games, weeks before the city confirmed the outbreak in December. The delegation was part of the 300-member group of American athletes taking part in the multi-sport event held every four years.

Zhao is not the only high-profile political figure to voice suspicions about the timing of the Games and the introduction of the coronavirus in Wuhan. Former Malaysian PM Matthias Chang offered similar speculation back in January, zeroing in on the event as the launch point for what he deemed a biological war waged by the US against China.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that what is now the Covid-19 pandemic was first reported as a coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019. The search for the deadly disease’s origin has been ongoing, with conflicting versions blaming the Wuhan food market and bats – a local delicacy – sold there in particular, while others opined humans might have gotten the virus from pangolins, an endangered scaly mammal.

ACCORDING TO GUS-THE-KNOW-ALL, IT IS MOST LIKELY (99,99 PER CENT CHANCES), THE LEAK CAME FROM THE USA, VIA A SOLDIER(S) DURING THE WUHAN ARMY GAMES...

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/482990-china-coronavirus-us-come-clean/

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