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.

China says it's "extremely unlikely" that COVID-19​ came from a lab, after the CIA said it believed​, though with low confidence, that it did, rather than from natural transmission.

Five years on from the start of the pandemic, Donald Trump’s new CIA director has weighed into the contentious debate saying a lab leak was “most likely”.

China said on Monday it was "extremely unlikely" that the coronavirus came from a laboratory, after the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it believed the virus had more likely come from such a facility rather than natural transmission.

The Show Me State vows to seize $25 billion in Chinese assets if Beijing doesn't pay damages related to the outbreak of COVID-19.

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 residents of Wuhan bitterly remember the more than two-month lockdown they were subjected to five years ago, during the early stages of the COVID pandemic, which China confronted with a strict policy that isolated the country for three years and severely impacted its economy.

In a fresh analysis, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it believes that the Covid-19 virus ‘more likely’ leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals. The US intelligence agency has released the ’low confidence’ assessment under Trump-appointed CIA director John Ratcliffe,

The Chinese city registered the first cases of the infection and implemented the first lockdown of the population to curb contagion

The news comes after the CIA announced over the weekend that COVID-19 most likely originated from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2020.

Close to the architecture of ancient and modern China, CLOU Architects has designed a multifunctional complex as a disruptive territorial landmark, propelling new sporty and social energies.

Ski coach Li Yue offers classes at Bonski, an indoor ski resort chain, in Wuhan. Li, 26, said the age ranges he sees are from 6 to 40, and are mainly either young people or women from Central China wanting to experience the sport for the first time.