Five years ago, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen devoted her first State of the European Union address to her plans to use the Covid pandemic as a catalyst for positive change. Now she says, “Europe must fight.” The Commission president’s speech on Wednesday was marked by a grim read of geopolitical events ― from war and bloodshed in Ukraine and Gaza, to pressure from U.S. president Donald Trump and rising costs, a housing crisis and poverty at home. “Our Union is fundamentally a peace project,” von der Leyen told a divided and at times jeering Parliament. “But the truth is that the world of today is unforgiving.”  Europe “must fight for its place” in a world marked by “imperial ambitions” and dependencies that are “ruthlessly weaponized,” she said. POLITICO’s wordcloud analysis of von der Leyen’s speeches, five years apart, shows the extent to which public opinion and political narrative have shifted since she took the helm of the Commission.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zum Start nach der Sommerpause blickt das Update auf gleich zwei große politische Schauplätze: Im Auswärtigen Amt versammeln sich rund 230 Botschafterinnen und Botschafter zur jährlichen Konferenz. Für viele ist es die erste persönliche Begegnung mit Kanzler Friedrich Merz, der in seiner Rede neue außenpolitische Prioritäten setzt – von China bis zu einem nationalen Sicherheitsrat im Kanzleramt.  Gleichzeitig beginnt im Bundestag die Aufarbeitung der Corona-Jahre: Die neue Enquete-Kommission zur Pandemie startet mit ihrer ersten Sitzung. 14 Abgeordnete und 14 Sachverständige sollen bis 2027 klären, was gut lief – und was nicht. Mit dabei: umstrittene Experten wie Stefan Homburg. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

Former Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski was hospitalized on Wednesday after being assaulted in the eastern city of Siedlce, in what authorities say was an attack linked to his role in shaping the country’s pandemic policies. “A few hours ago, I was the victim of a brutal attack,” Niedzielski said after the assault. “I was beaten by two men shouting: ‘Death to traitors to the homeland.’ I got punched in the face and then kicked while lying on the ground. The whole incident lasted several seconds, and then the perpetrators fled,” he added. Police confirmed late Wednesday that two men in their 30s were detained in connection with the incident. The suspects are expected to be questioned on Thursday. Authorities said more details about the suspects and the circumstances of the attack would be released after questioning concludes. The assault took place outside a restaurant in central Siedlce, the police said. Witnesses reported that the attackers loudly criticized the government’s Covid-era decisions before physically confronting the former health minister. Following the assault, Niedzielski was briefly admitted to the Provincial Hospital in Siedlce and discharged the same day with no serious injuries. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned the attack Wednesday evening, vowing that the perpetrators would go to jail. “No mercy,” he said. Niedzielski, who led the health ministry from 2020 to 2023, was a central figure in implementing restrictions and vaccination campaigns that remain divisive among parts of the public. Commenting on the attack on Wednesday, Niedzielski said it was “the result of tolerating hate speech,” but also of the decision of Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński of depriving him of protection, “despite numerous threats” he had previously received. “I hope that this situation will cause reflections on all sides of the political scene that we are already on a slippery slope. Passivity will only condemn us to further escalation,” Niedzielski said.

A new study published Thursday warns that tiger mosquitoes are increasingly spreading to Europe because of climate change, raising the risk that tropical diseases such as dengue and chikungunya become endemic across the continent. Nearly half the global population is now at risk of contracting dengue and chikungunya, which were once limited to the tropics, due to the warming planet. Both viruses, transmitted by mosquitoes, can occasionally be fatal. The symptoms include a high fever, headache, body aches, nausea and rash. The tiger mosquito, in particular, is venturing further north as global temperatures rise due to man-made climate change. The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, examined how climate and other factors have influenced the spread of dengue and chikungunya in Europe over the past 35 years. It found that outbreaks have become more frequent and severe since 2010, in line with rising temperatures. “Our findings highlight that the EU is transitioning from sporadic outbreaks of Aedes-borne diseases towards an endemic state,” the study said. In 2024, the hottest year on record, a total of 304 dengue cases were reported in the EU — “a historic peak compared with the combined total of 275 cases in the previous 15 years,” the study said. Countries like Italy, Croatia, France and Spain have all experienced outbreaks, the study said, adding: “The trend suggests a progression from sporadic cases towards endemicity in these countries.”   In June last year, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control found there were 130 locally acquired cases of dengue in the EU/EEA in 2023, compared with just 71 in the 10-year period between 2010 and 2021. According to the study, under worst-case climate scenarios, the spread of dengue and chikungunya could increase to five times the current rate by 2060.

World Health Organization (WHO) members will reconvene on Tuesday to finalize a deal on sharing life-saving technology with developing countries as part of a new pandemic agreement, after all-night talks brought them within striking distance of an accord. The WHO members have reached an agreement “in principle” over how to tackle future pandemics after three years of discussions, the co-chair of the negotiating body told Agence France-Presse on Saturday. According to the latest draft of the proposed pact, obtained by POLITICO, most of the text is now agreed. Still to be signed off on is contentious language governing the sharing of technology for pandemic-related products such as drugs, vaccines and therapeutics. Developing countries have pushed for strong language that will ensure they are able to scale up production in their own regions, rather than waiting in line for critical technologies. But developed countries, including members of the European Union, have insisted throughout that any tech transfer from pharma companies must be on “voluntary and mutually agreed terms.” Under the latest proposed fix, still subject to final confirmation, the sharing of technology should be “willingly undertaken and on mutually agreed terms.” The deal is due to go to the WHO’s annual assembly for final approval next month.

The United Kingdom has detected bird flu in a sheep for the first time, the government announced today. The case, found in a sheep in Yorkshire after repeated milk tests, was identified “following routine surveillance” of livestock on a premises where avian influenza had been confirmed in captive birds, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency said. No further infection with the virus was detected in the remaining flock and there is no evidence to suggest an increased risk to the nation’s livestock population, they added. But U.K. Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss urged livestock keepers to “remain vigilant.” The government said it introduced livestock surveillance of infected premises because of the outbreak of avian influenza in dairy cows in the United States.  America has been grappling with a devastating bird flu outbreak that has wiped out more than 166 million birds since 2022, spread to dairy cattle in 17 states and led to soaring egg prices. Earlier this month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned the rapidly expanding H5N1 outbreak was “unprecedented” and leading to “serious impacts” on food production, rural jobs, local economies and prices for consumers. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested letting the avian flu virus spread through farms to “find and identify” birds that are immune to it — an idea that has drawn criticism that this would increase the risk of it evolving to be dangerous to humans. European Union health authorities recently warned that bird flu has been detected in domestic cats and wild carnivores in Europe for the first time since spring 2024 — a sign that the virus continues to spill over into mammals. Scientists and researchers have grown increasingly concerned over bird flu’s cross-species transmission and its adaptive nature, which could lead to possible human spillover and pose a pandemic threat.

LONDON — Most politicians would happily never talk about the pandemic again. But Britain is still living with its far-reaching consequences. Five years ago this week, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson solemnly ordered Brits into lockdown in a televised address to the nation — an unprecedented step that came as Covid-19 raged around the world and the U.K.’s National Health Service faced overwhelming pressures. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the pandemic. An estimated 1.9 million more were left with long Covid, experiencing sometimes debilitating symptoms for years after contracting the virus. A creaking British government machine was left badly exposed, accused of failing to prepare — and then moving too slowly when the crisis hit. The fallout cost Johnson his job. Politics was upended. Parliament went virtual. Daily government press conferences on the response to the crisis — and the rising death toll — were beamed into Brits’ living rooms each evening, making familiar faces of obscure ministers. And government borrowing ballooned as GDP plummeted and millions were placed on state-funded furlough in a bid to prevent a deeper catastrophe. Yet, five years on, Westminster sometimes acts like the pandemic never happened. The consequences of placing an entire nation into multiple lockdowns hardly featured during last year’s general election campaign. But the challenges Labour now grapples with, from a creaking economy to tottering public services and low public trust, seem inextricably linked to that time many Brits would rather forget. ECONOMIC TOLL As ministers scramble for savings, the economic consequences of Covid-19 are still apparent. First there was the short-term shock. Public sector borrowing shot up to £313 billion in 2020-2021 — about £179 billion more than expected before the pandemic. The furlough scheme, introduced by then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak, effectively paid workers to stay at home to avoid mass layoffs. That measure alone cost an eye-watering £96.9 billion. And although borrowing has since fallen again, scars remain. Five years ago this week, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson solemnly ordered Brits into lockdown in a televised address to the nation. | Jemal Countess/Getty Images British government debt — which sat at around £1.9 trillion in 2019-2020, soared to over £2.7 trillion by 2023-2024. The pandemic was one of two shocks contributing to this, with state subsidies also doled out to help Brits cope with the post-Ukraine invasion spike in global energy prices. “We’ve got a lot more public sector debt,” said Paul Johnson, director of the non-partisan Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank — and the government is paying “an enormous amount of interest” on that debt. This in turn restricts the current Labour government’s room for maneuver on a host of promises, and provides some of the backdrop to a tough fiscal statement looming later this month. Johnson of the IFS explained that the British economy is now probably smaller than if Covid-19 hadn’t happened — and that means people are “worse off than they otherwise would have been.” That feeling of being squeezed is hardly helped by increased court delays, ballooning hospital waiting lists, and a struggling educational system — all of which can be traced, at least in part, to the pandemic. In Dec. 2019, the month the virus was first detected in China, the overall NHS waiting list for England was estimated at 4.57 million people. By Jan. 2025, approximately 6.25 million people were on the list, including nearly 200,000 people who have been waiting more than a year for treatment. Waiting lists are now falling again — but it was a crisis the already-strained NHS could have surely done without. The pandemic heaped fresh pressure, too, on the British justice system. Courts were forced to operate remotely and spend more on video equipment as restrictions fell. A report by MPs on the Commons public accounts committee found that temporary, “Nightingale” courtrooms — set up to comply with social distancing guidelines — were typically three times as expensive to run as existing courtrooms. The same committee found that the Crown Court backlog of open cases had rocketed from 33,290 cases in March 2019 to 73,105 at the end of Sept. 2024. One of the most pressing impacts of the pandemic for many families was the closure of the vast majority of schools. The quality of remote learning provided in place of face-to-face lessons varied greatly. While GCSE grades have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, some children simply haven’t returned to the classroom. Persistent absenteeism, where 10 percent or more of lessons are missed, increased from 10.5 percent of pupils in the fall and spring of 2018-2019 to 19.2 percent in 2023-2024. “There is clearly a break point where the productivity of those systems is much worse now than it was pre-Covid,” Johnson said — although he stressed that a direct correlation between Covid-19 and current public sector challenges is tricky to pin down. The inquiry’s first report into pandemic readiness, published last July, was damning. It found the government went into the crisis “ill prepared” and lacking resilience. | Carl Court/Getty Images On welfare, the U.K. is the only G7 country that has higher levels of economic inactivity now than it did before the pandemic — with 2.8 million people currently out of work due to long-term sickness compared to 2.1 million in July 2019. Johnson cautioned that it is “hard to know” why the U.K. has been specifically affected on this point. But it is against this stark backdrop that the Labour government seeks to reform welfare — risking a bitter battle with its own MPs in the process. Spending on working age health-related benefits increased from £36 billion pre-pandemic, in 2019-2020, to £48 billion by 2023-2024. The number of people claiming incapacity benefits has shot up by 28 percent, and 39 percent for disability benefits over the same period. STATE OF DISREPAIR The pandemic also exposed huge cracks in the way the British government machine works — with a blame-game between ministers and top officials playing out in the ongoing Covid-19 inquiry. There is no certainty about how long that probe will last, but it hopes to hold its final public hearings next year. The inquiry’s first report into pandemic readiness, published last July, was damning. It found the government went into the crisis “ill prepared” and lacking resilience. A parade of ministers and advisers in post at the time — including Boris Johnson and his abrasive top adviser-turned-nemesis Dominic Cummings — lamented how the Whitehall machine underestimated the pandemic’s scale, and some stressed that mass gatherings should have stopped much earlier. Cummings lambasted what he saw as the the civil service’s fatalism about the pandemic spreading, and claimed that Cabinet Office — at the heart of government — was a “dumpster fire” with the wrong people in charge. Starmer, the current prime minister, has begun to embark on what he’s billing as a fundamental shake-up of the British state, and late last week scrapped NHS England, the management body for the health service. Yet the public justification for that move has focused on duplicated comms teams in Whitehall — not the wider challenges exposed by the pandemic. Britain was not alone in flailing when the pandemic hit. “When you looked globally, very few countries were ready for a pandemic on that scale,” Institute for Government Senior Researcher Rosa Hodgkin said. But the outcomes for the U.K. were particularly stark — despite a highly effective vaccine rollout in 2021, it fared poorly on a number of measures compared with its G7 competitors, including excess deaths. The pandemic highlighted the perils of serious political dysfunction in a crisis too. Boris Johnson’s Conservative Downing Street warred over how to respond to the pandemic. It showed itself to be “particularly incapable” in terms of decision-making capabilities, according to IFS boss Paul Johnson. Groups including the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice continue to push for change. | Carl Court/Getty Images “I don’t think any of us were ready for anything of that scale,” admitted one former Conservative government adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But they reflected: “Nobody and no institution and no organization can be ready for absolutely everything all at the same time.”  UNENVIABLE CHALLENGE Politicians were not exactly universally loved going into Covid-19. But the response to the pandemic — and the Partygate scandal which saw lockdown-busting, boozy gatherings take place in the heart of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street despite strict pandemic rules being in place — further dented trust in the political class. Ipsos polling in Nov. 2024 found just 11 percent of the public trusted politicians to tell the truth. Some 19 percent said they trusted politicians in 2018. If Labour is still grappling with that lack of faith in politics — a recent YouGov poll found just 24 percent of Brits trust Keir Starmer — there’s also an apparent keenness in the governing party not to bang on about the Tories’ pandemic failures. Once the acute phase of the pandemic was over, Covid-19 was no longer “front and center” of Labour’s attention, a former adviser to the party said. Instead, the then-opposition swiftly came to believe that highlighting the economic failures of Johnson’s chaotic successor Liz Truss was more fertile electoral ground. “We appeared to have our act together for the first time in many years,” the adviser said. They argued that talking about the pandemic and Partygate alone were not enough to guarantee an election victory. “The test is on the opposition to be ready for that moment when it comes.” But while Covid-19 quickly fell away as a “top-of-mind issue” for voters too, according to Ipsos pollster Gideon Skinner, Brits “still think [it] is having an ongoing impact on the state of the country.” As the inquiry continues its long work, groups including the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice continue to push for change. In a punchy report last year, the campaigners pitched 22 asks of the government in the hopes of improving readiness for the next pandemic. That includes creating a secretary of state for resilience and civil emergencies, a U.K. Standing Scientific Committee on Pandemics to advise on risks and preparedness, and a new National Office for Resilience. But, said Hodgkin from the IfG: “Governments here and in other countries have always struggled to do that learning lessons process after crises happen. There’s always a few years of really intense focus and a lot of discussion.” But then “either you have another crisis … so that lesson just gets subsumed into dealing with the next thing. Or there’s a feeling of: ‘we just want to go back to normal now’ and start getting on with other stuff.” “I don’t suppose politicians think very hard about why we’re in the state we’re in,” Johnson at the IFS concurred. “They’re dealing with the problems as they see them.”

In the early morning hours of March 8, 2020, the lives of Milan’s more than 1 million residents were radically upended. Just three weeks earlier, a 38-year-old man had become the first resident of Italy’s northern Lombardy region to test positive for Covid-19. And after more locals developed symptoms, authorities placed a handful of towns under quarantine, with red zones declared to keep residents from spreading the mysterious new respiratory virus. During those first days of the crisis, few thought that Milan, the country’s economic powerhouse, would ever face similar restrictions. But the unthinkable became inevitable as the number of confirmed cases spiked, and on that Sunday in March, then-Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte held an emergency press conference to announce that Italy’s second-largest city was locked down. It was the beginning of an extraordinary period that would see Milan be transformed by measures that would ultimately endure far beyond the crisis. Pierfrancesco Maran — at the time a municipal councilor in charge of the city’s powerful urbanism portfolio — recalls feeling shocked when he heard the decision. “It all seemed incredible,” Maran, now a lawmaker in the European Parliament, told Living Cities in an interview. “We couldn’t believe that such dramatic measures were being adopted.” Leading up to lockdown, Milan was experiencing a “fantastic moment” in its history, Maran explained, with the city’s fortunes trending up since hosting the 2015 World Expo. Its shift from industrial capital to a global hub of innovation, tourism and prosperity was finally being consolidated. “As a city councilor, it was difficult for me to accept the that the lockdown was the only way forward,” he said. “But it was also clear that all other attempts to contain the pandemic weren’t working.” LA NUOVA NORMALITÀ Milan’s lockdown was the first to affect a major European city. But within days, the rest of the continent’s metropolitan regions would find themselves under similar conditions. The entirety of Italy was declared a red zone just 48 hours after the harsh restrictions were imposed on the capital of Lombardy. Countries like Spain, Belgium and France would follow suit just days later, and by the end of the month, every European country — and, indeed, much of the world — had quarantine rules in place. Maran said that by virtue of being one of the first cities to be subject to a lockdown, Milan was among the first to start working on “a gradual, post-pandemic reopening” — an ambitious plan that reimagined the urban landscape to prioritize access to public spaces. “Our strategy had the reconquest of public space at its core,” he explained, emphasizing that the outdoors was “the safest space from the point of view of contagion.” But, he added, the city’s approach aimed to make the most of the “extraordinary opportunity” provided by a lockdown that was, at the time, keeping everyone at home. “That made it possible to do things that would have otherwise been very difficult, if not impossible,” he said. “We created cycle paths on the main city arteries to manage the reduced capacity of public transport, promoted smart working, and substantially liberalized the possibility for bars and restaurants to place tables outside.” The city’s tactical Strade Aperte urbanism plan capped speed limits on roads at 30 kilometers per hour, widened sidewalks, and saw the installation of low-cost temporary cycle lanes throughout the city. And Milan’s approach to la nuova normalità — “the new normal” — quickly became an example for other cities across Europe. In Brussels, authorities similarly rolled out temporary cycling infrastructure and set 20 kilometer per hour speed limits within the Pentagon zone — the area encircled by the city’s inner ring road — where pedestrians and bikers were given priority. Meanwhile, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo moved to make pandemic terraces permanent and put French-Colombian academic Carlos Moreno’s 15-minute city model at the heart of her successful reelection campaign. The impact of these Milan-inspired measures were far-reaching, with air quality improving in urban areas throughout Europe. They were also enthusiastically embraced by city dwellers, who overwhelmingly supported making many of the temporary changes permanent. LASTING IMPACT Today, five years after the crisis began, Maran said he’s proud to see so many of “the most drastic changes adopted during the pandemic now consolidated as integral elements” in cities that are no longer threatened by Covid-19. The temporary cycle paths installed during Milan’s lockdown have blossomed into over 100 kilometers of new bike lanes, and smart working schemes have become standard in the countless businesses based in the capital of Lombardy. But Maran also noted that some of the other omnipresent lockdown practices — like public hand sanitizer dispensers or the use of face masks — were shunted as soon as the pandemic was brought under control with the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine. “I don’t think we’ve left these things behind for economic reasons or anything like that, but rather because they remind us too much of that period,” he said. This modern desire to forget the pandemic isn’t unusual — our ancestors had the same reaction to the similarly devastating Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919. Once its impact subsided, the world rushed to move on, and just five years after the disease claimed between 50 million and 100 million lives, the 1924 Encyclopedia Britannica failed to even mention it in its review of the 20th century’s most significant events. “I think most people want to erase anything that makes them think about it explicitly,” Maran observed. “It’s only been five years since it happened, but nobody wants to talk about it.” But while the general public can try to forget the trauma, local authorities don’t have that luxury, Maran said. And in its aftermath, municipal governments now have specific plans to put into action for the future pandemics experts say our cities will inevitably face. “We now all have pandemic management plans that are regularly updated, and our administrations have developed structures that allow us to work in even the most daunting emergency situations,” he said. “This experience has left us prepared to face a similar emergency, whenever it might arise.”

France is leading a charge against an EU proposal to merge Europe’s health crisis authority with its civil protection unit over fears it will downgrade the bloc’s ability to respond in a health emergency. Europe’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) was set up in 2021 to better anticipate health threats and respond effectively to them. The authority has since procured vaccines for EU countries, boosted Europe’s disease surveillance through a wastewater network and led discussions on how to solve the bloc’s drug shortages crisis. The European Commission has recently completed a review of the authority and — while the report has neither been published nor shared with the capitals — countries hear it contains proposals to merge HERA with the Commission’s civil protection and humanitarian aid unit, DG ECHO. In a document to be sent to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday, and seen by POLITICO, France — supported by 10 other countries — warns: “Merging or attaching DG HERA to another Commission DG would not guarantee the current system of governance which guarantees independent decision making, respect for the competencies of member states, and a high degree of stakeholder involvement.” The countries are pushing to “preserve HERA’s current structure” — as an independent Directorate-General inside the European Commission — “which must not be dissolved.” Much like the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the capitals say HERA’s work is just as important, adding: “In the current geopolitical context, it is essential for the EU to develop an autonomous structural capacity to prevent crises and respond to emergencies.” France is joined by Germany, Spain, Belgium and Ireland in opposing the merger idea. Portugal, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Greece and Estonia are also on board. The opposition first flared up Tuesday during a HERA board meeting, where capital representatives were present. According to minutes of the meeting seen by POLITICO, Germany took to the floor, “despite not being on the agenda,” to raise concerns about the merger rumors. Germany was supported by France, whose rep encouraged other countries to support a paper they were preparing for von der Leyen. One official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, suggested the merger is linked to the political horse-trading of competencies when Hungary’s Olivér Várhelyi was under consideration for health commissioner. Political groups agreed in November to approve him as health commissioner but strip him of control of HERA. Instead, the authority was handed to Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib.

A top Chinese official on Monday denied suggestions from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that the Covid-19 pandemic was triggered by the virus leaking from a lab. “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. Mao added that “this has been widely recognized by the international community and the scientific community.” Several studies have said that the virus originated naturally, arguing it may have spread among people who were exposed to infected animals sold at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. But officials in Washington have harbored suspicions that the virus may have originated in a lab, before leaking out to the general population and causing a pandemic that killed millions of people and sent much of the world into harsh lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. Over the weekend, the CIA issued a new public assessment about Covid just two days after former Republican lawmaker John Ratcliffe was sworn in as its new director, in the new American administration under President Donald Trump. “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. The statement didn’t include details about what led the CIA to change its assessment and whether it had intelligence that would bolster the theory that the virus leaked from a research lab in Wuhan, China. The “CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the Covid-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the statement said.