The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the 19 pandemic originated in laboratories, according to an assessment released Saturday that points to China.

Find no new intelligence, and the report is over for the Biden administration and former CIA director William Burns. It was reduced and released on Saturday by order of President-elect Donald Trump, who was sworn in as director on Thursday.

The subtle finding suggests that the agency believes the totality of the evidence makes a laboratory origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency's assessment gives a low degree of confidence in this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or conflicting.

Earlier reports on the origin of Covid-19 have divided whether the coronavirus emerged from Chinese laboratories, suggesting it originated naturally. In fact, intelligence officials say, that it can never be resolved, due to the lack of cooperation from the Chinese authorities.

The CIA “continues to assess that both research and natural origin scenarios for the 2019 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.

Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on fresh intelligence analyzes of the spread of the virus, its scientific properties, and the work and conditions of China's virology laboratories.

US lawmakers have pressed America's spy agencies for more information about the origins of the virus, which has led to lockdowns, economic upheaval and millions of deaths, a question that has important domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic's legacy.

“Make China Pay,” Republican Senator Says

REPUBLICAN SENATOR ARKANSAS TOKANS, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was “satisfied with the CIA's conclusion in the final days of the Biden administration that the lab leak theory was the most plausible explanation,” and he commended the assessment.

“The bottom line now is that China is paying for unleashing a plague on the world,” Cotton said in a statement.

Chinese authorities dismissed speculation about the coffin's origins as politically motivated, with a spokesman for the Chinese embassy saying on Saturday that the CIA report lacked credibility.

“Stay away from conspiracy theories,” says a Chinese official

“We are strongly against the politicization and tightening of the source of the virus and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” said Lugengu, the spokesperson of Dondassankh.

Although the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists believe the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, perhaps raccoon dogs or bamboo rats, and then spreading to humans , who drive or pump these animals into the Wuhan market, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019.

Several official investigations, however, have raised the question of whether the virus escaped from labs in Wuhan, with an Energy Department report sealing a lab leak as the likely source, although the report also expressed low confidence in the findings.

That same year, FBI Director Christopher Vrouy said his agency believed it was “most likely” the virus spread after escaping into the lab.

Ratcliffe, who served as Director of National Intelligence during Trump's first term, said he favors the lab leak scenario.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.

The CIA said it would continue to evaluate any new information that might change its assessment.