In an interview with Breitbart News published on Friday, Ratcliffe said he wanted the CIA to abandon its neutral stance on the origins of the virus and "get off the sidelines". "One of the things that I've talked about a lot is addressing the threat from China on a number of fronts, and that goes back to why a million Americans died and why the Central Intelligence Agency has been sitting on the sidelines for five years in not making an assessment about the origins of COVID," he said.

The Central Intelligence Agency has assessed that the Covid-19 pandemic was "more likely" to have emerged from a lab rather than from nature. The stunning admission has come after lab leak theories were branded as “conspiracy theories” by many mainstream media outlets.

“We have low confidence in this judgement and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment,” the statement added. The New York Times reported that the decision to reassess the origins of the pandemic came after the Biden administration “ordered a new classified review of the pandemic’s origin” during the administration’s final weeks in office.

The US intelligence agency was previously on the fence about Covid-19’s origins.

The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a Wuhan lab. The agency pointed the finger at China but admitted it had ‘low confidence’ in its conclusion, citing incomplete and inconclusive evidence. The move to declassify the findings was ordered by President Donald Trump’s pick for CIA director, John Ratcliffe.