‘Are you serious? Did you just cough at me?’: Woman appears to deliberately cough on man in coronavirus train row

Passenger admits deliberately coughing in man’s direction, before saying: ‘I don’t have the pandemic…bully’

A video has appeared online which shows a woman appearing to deliberately cough on a man during an argument over coronavirus a man on a train in Sydney.

Seconds after asking her to cover her mouth when she coughed, the woman coughs in his direction.

In response, the man takes off his headphone and says: “Are you serious? Did you just cough at me?”

The woman confirms that she did, before adding: “I don’t have the pandemic…bully”.

The man then stresses he asked her politely to cover her mouth when coughing, in line with government advice in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

The footage was filmed by Andy Park, an ABC journalist, on Monday morning and posted on his Twitter account.

The argument comes as fears about the illness are escalating around the world, with the global death toll nearing 4,000.

In Australia, some supermarket shelves in Sydney were left empty last week after customers resorted to panic buying.

Goods such as hand sanitiser and toilet paper are in short supply in some areas, as people decided to stockpile products.

Meanwhile, Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket, has started to limit the numbers of household items and essential food which each customer can buy.

The buying restrictions include products such as wipes, dry pasta and tinned vegetables.

Anxiety over the illness has also caused global stock markets to plunge, made worse by the significant drop in oil prices brought about by a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.