The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin.

The CIA says both a natural origin and a lab leak "remain plausible" as potential sources of covid-19, following a review of the pandemic's origins.

The Central Intelligence Agency has assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely to have emerged from a lab than from nature, an agency spokesperson said on Saturday. The agency had for years said it could not conclude whether COVID-19 was the result of a lab incident or originated in nature.