Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
The Portuguese police have launched a nationwide manhunt after this COVID-19 patient broke the country’s lockdown and went on the run with his mother.
The police are searching for Lourenco Silva, 43, a civil construction worker who lives in France, after he returned to his hometown of Fafe in the northern Portuguese district of Braga in the middle of March with symptoms of COVID-19.
He underwent testing at Porto’s Sao Joao hospital and the results came back positive for both him and his unnamed mother, 70.
Local media report the pair moved to Povoa de Varzim after the positive results, leaving his father without symptoms in the family home in Fafe, but Silva continued leaving his house and did not answer phone calls from the health services.
Police officers then reportedly went to the area he was living in and arrested him for serious disobedience on Sunday. He was taken home but on Monday the PSP went back to his flat and did not find him or his mother there.
Local media report the authorities are now searching for the pair throughout the country and Silva has reportedly attempted to delete all trace of himself on social media.
Silva was reportedly spotted alone at a petrol station on Tuesday and cops went to the scene but he had fled.
The search is ongoing.
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According to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins University, Portugal has suffered 13,141 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 380 deaths and 196 recoveries.