Quotes
Origins-tracing is a matter of science and any judgement on it should be made in a science-based spirit and by scientists. It is extremely unlikely that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak,
said foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning at a press conference Introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway,
We have at least a half-dozen scientific papers in the best scientific journals, including Cell and Science, which convincingly demonstrate how the SARS-2 virus emerged through zoonotic spillover,
said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, in an email to TIME This has been widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community,
The conclusion that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely was reached by the joint China–WHO expert team based on field visits to relevant laboratories in Wuhan,
said Mao Ning, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, at a press briefing, according to news agency AFP 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,
an unnamed agency spokesperson wrote to reporters on Saturday It is still an old routine of political manipulation of tracing the source and has no credibility. The source of the virus is a complex scientific issue, and scientists and experts should find the answer through rigorous and meticulous scientific research, rather than being judged by politicians,
embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said I’ve been on record as you know in saying I think our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all really dictates that the origins of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the CIA has not made that assessment or at least not made that assessment publicly,
Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, told the outlet 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. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,
a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement, noting The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,
Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,
Cotton said in a statement We firmly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,
embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press I had the opportunity on my first day to make public an assessment that actually took place in the Biden administration, so it can't be accused of being political, and the CIA has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan, so we'll continue to investigate that moving forward,
he told "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo I think it was important for the American people to see an institution like the CIA get off the sidelines and be truthful about what our intelligence shows and, at the same time, protect us from adversaries like China if they caused or contributed to this,
The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is unmatched, its ability to acquire information unrivaled. And yet here we are three-and-a-half years later and there is ample public reporting that the CIA just doesn’t have enough information to make an assessment. This is utter nonsense,
the March 2023 piece says The agency is going to get off the sidelines,
Ratcliffe -- who believes Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology -- told right-wing outlet Breitbart The purpose of the CIA is to protect Americans, to keep us safe from foreign threats and foreign adversaries, but we also need to be truthful with Americans, and he [President Trump] has stressed to me and others that these aren't mutually exclusive missions. We can do both,
Ratcliffe told "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo 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,
As President Trump deals with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping], he needs to be armed with the very best intelligence and to be able to talk about China in a way that if they caused or contributed to the death of a million Americans, the president needs to be armed with that,
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