In Braga, at the end of a visit to the local hospital, Lacerda Sales told reporters that those councils will remain in the stage where they currently are.

"They will not advance, they will not retreat, they will remain in the situation they are in" he said.

On Tuesday, during the usual space for comment on TVI24, the mayor of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, had already said that the council would not proceed to the next phase of easing of lockdown plan.

Fernando Medina considered that the city “is in a situation that is not easy”, since “the number of cases [of the covid-19] exceeded the level of 120 [contagions per 100,000 inhabitants]”.

Speaking to journalists on 9 June, the mayor of Braga, Ricardo Rio, said that it was already expected that the council would not move forward, given the number of cases of infection registered in recent weeks.

According to the mayor, the number of cases in the county per 100,000 inhabitants exceeds 170 and in the last few days, the numbers of new daily cases have been around 20. For this reason, the mayor stated that he is not surprised with this announcement.