Beijing has never fully co-operated with international investigators, impeding the search for a definitive answer. But scientists continue their quest to establish the causes of a global health crisis that killed millions of people, caused trillions of dollars of economic damage and increased fears over the risks of virus research.

Ex-CNN editor Chris Cilizza conceded on Monday that he "screwed up" in his assessment of the lab leak theory, suggesting that President Trump was likely right about COVID's origins.

China on Monday dismissed the possibility that the virus that caused COVID-19 leaked from a lab, after the CIA said it now favors the so-called lab leak theory over natural transmission. “It is extremely unlikely the pandemic was caused by a lab leak,

It was on January 30, 2020, that WHO declared Covid-19 a global public health emergency. The novel coronavirus would end up killing nearly seven million people. Five years on, and with Donald Trump back in the White House,

The problem for the lab-leak position is that the U.S. has never had access to the Wuhan lab and has thus been unable to reach a definitive answer for more than five years. Now that the CIA has at last come to a conclusion, not all scientists are sold on what it has reported, seeing the results as thinly scientifically sourced.

The Central Intelligence Agency with a "low confidence" has changed its stance and concluded that it's likely the COVI-19 virus was leaked from a Chinese lab before it became a global pandemic five years ago.

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

The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment that points the finger at China even while acknowledging