STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention run a sponsored Facebook post asking for help locating a man who arrived from Hong Kong, and who refused to go into mandatory quarantine? No, that's not true: the post was published by a Facebook page named "Covid19", which used the official CDC logo. But the page was created only a few days ago, and it has no relation with the official CDC page.

The post in question (archived here and in Facebook's ad library) was apparently published on March 2, 2020. It showed a screenshot of what looks like an earlier sponsored post by a page with the same name that showed a picture of an Asian-looking young man in a car and the text:

Breaking News! Authority is looking for this male in his early 20's localed in
the east bay. He was put in for mandatory quarantine after arrival from Hong
Kong. He refused and has escaped the us base quarantine. We need your
help to flnd him before the spread ofhe deadly virus.

Lead Stories was unable to locate the sponsored post shown in the screenshot and reverse image searching the photo returned no results.

However the page transparency information for the Covid19 Facebook page shows it had been created recently, on March 2, 2020:

The real CDC Facebook page makes no mention of any "wanted" patients on the run. It also doesn't mention anything about mandatory quarantines. It does however show several useful tips for protecting yourself from COVID-19:

Lead Stories has reported the fraudulent page to Facebook via the "Find Support or Report Page" button in the transparency popup that appears if you click "See More" in the Page Transparency sidebar widget:

We encourage our readers to do the same with any fraudulent pages they spot.

There is a lot of misinformation online about the novel coronavirus. Here are some other fact checks by Lead Stories:

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• Fact Check: Hair Weaves And Lace Front Wigs Made In China NOT Likely To Contain Coronavirus
• Fact Check: Scientists Did NOT Discover That Cocaine Kills Coronavirus
• Fact Check: NO Evidence Coronavirus Is Bioweapon Leaked From Wuhan Lab
• Fake News: Six Coronavirus Cases NOT Confirmed In Wichita, Kansas (Or Several Other U.S. Cities)
• Fake News: 20 Million Chinese Did NOT Convert To Islam, And It Was NOT Proven That Coronavirus Epidemic Did Not Afflict Muslims
• Fake News: NO Evidence To Support Claim From Bioweapons Expert Who Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon
• Fake News: Popping Bubble Wrap Does NOT Expose People To Coronavirus
• Fake News: Data From Windy.com Does NOT Show Massive Release Of Sulfur Dioxide Gas Near Wuhan
• Fake News: Latest Research Published By Chinese Scientists Did NOT Say Coronavirus Will Render Most Male Patients Infertile
• Fake News: NO Proof That High-Rise Buildings Have Become Human Incinerators To Combat Coronavirus
• Fake News: Residential Building NOT In Wuhan, NOT Set Ablaze To Control Coronavirus Spread

Updates:

• 2020-03-06T12:01:05Z 2020-03-06T12:01:05Z
  We reported the page to Facebook.