Did the Central Intelligence Agency announce that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely emerged from a lab in China? Several viral Instagram posts claim that the agency now supports the lab leak hypothesis. “The CIA says COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak,” reads two versions of the post.
The claim is true. The CIA recently revised its assessment of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying—with low confidence—that the first infection most likely occurred in a laboratory related incident.
On March 20, 2023, former President Joe Biden—who had directed the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to begin investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic two years prior—signed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, a bill requiring the director of national intelligence (DNI) to declassify information related to IC investigations into the origin of the virus. The bill was widely supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate.
Three months later, in compliance with the order, the DNI issued an assessment of U.S. IC investigations. According to the report, intelligence organizations agreed broadly on several points: That the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not developed as a biological weapon, that China did not have knowledge of the virus prior to the initial outbreak, and—with low confidence—that the virus had not been genetically engineered. However, the organizations disagreed on whether a laboratory-related incident or natural exposure to an infected animal was the more likely origin of the virus.
Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assessed with low confidence that the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted from natural exposure to an infected animal, likely in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a large wet market in Wuhan where living and dead animals are bought, sold, and butchered. The Department of Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, assessed that a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely origin. Two intelligence organizations—including the CIA—were unable to reach a conclusion based on existing evidence. None of the intelligence organizations found direct evidence for either origin, and all remained open to either possibility as additional information became available.
On January 25, 2025, however, the CIA revised its previous assessment, announcing that it now favored a laboratory-associated origin. According to reporting from the New York Times, the revision was not triggered by new evidence, but resulted from deeper consideration of the conditions in Wuhan’s various high security labs in 2019.
“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 told The Dispatch Fact Check in a statement. The spokesperson, however, also emphasized that the agency’s judgment could change. “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the spokesperson added. “We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”
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