A video purporting to show a subway passenger licking his finger and then wiping it on a handrail has sparked outrage in Hong Kong.
The viral video appears to show the man removing his face mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it on the MTR train yesterday. He then rubbed his finger against the red pole.
The man, a hedge fund manager, has apologised to the public. But he claimed he made the video as a joke and insisted he had pretended to stick his finger into his mouth.
The video shows the Hong Kong resident removing his mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it on the MTR train yesterday. He then rubbed his finger against the handrail
The passenger, a hedge fund manager, posted on his Facebook page last night to ‘publicly apologise to the people of Hong Kong for my actions’. He said the clip was a ‘parody video’
The picture shows passengers wearing protective face masks on the subway in Hong Kong
The passenger, named Joel Werner, claimed he had shared the ‘parody video’ among a handful of friends before it got posted onto social media.
The 43-year-old posted on his Facebook page last night to ‘publicly apologise to the people of Hong Kong for my actions.’
‘I made sure to use hand sanitiser both before and after I touched the pole, and also wiped the pole with hand sanitiser to ensure the safety of other passengers,’ Mr Werner added.
‘Please be assured that it was not my intention to cause any concern or harm to any member of the public.’
He made the video to show his friends how easy it would be to spread fake news amid the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Werner told the local press.
He said decided to make the video after watching another trending clip, which purported to show an American soldier spreading the virus on the metro in Wuhan. The clip later turned out to be filmed in Belgium.
Mr Werner first shared his video on a private Whatsapp group chat before it was forwarded by someone else and attracted tens of thousands of views on social media.
‘I’m terrified. It’s been spread all over,’ Mr Werner told the South China Morning Post. ‘I manage other people’s money. How embarrassing is this?
He insisted that he did not actually put his fingers in his mouth and that there was a second video which showed him disinfecting the handrail.
‘I feel like a victim of a crime. It’s very upsetting,’ he said.
The railway company, MTR Corporation, filed a police report against Mr Werner after the video sparked outrage on social media.
‘Such so-called pranks should be punished,’ one commenter said.
Another one wrote: ‘Your idiotic action is offensive, especially in this delicate moment.’
Another passenger was arrested last week for licking his hand and wiping it on a handrail on the Belgian subway, forcing the train to be taken off service and disinfected.
The unidentified man, who appears intoxicated, can be seen removing his mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it.
He then brings his right hand up to the vertical rail and grips it, before rubbing it along the bar.
Some commuters were still struggling into work in London today despite speculation that the lockdown could be tightened
The novel coronavirus can be passed on from person to person via a cough or sneeze. This strain is considered highly contagious.
Nearly 220,000 people have been infected with the deadly disease globally and it has claimed at least 8,942 lives.
The death toll in the UK has risen up to 104, with a total of 2,626 cases as London faces plunging deeper into lockdown within days.
Plans are believed to be in place for police to guard shops and helicopters to airdrop food, although sources insisted that is not happening at this stage in the unfolding crisis.
Speculation has been raging about the fate of London after Boris Johnson vowed he would not hesitate to go ‘further and faster’ to control the spread of the deadly virus.
A member of the public is swabbed at a drive through Coronavirus testing site, set up in a car park in Wolverhampton
Supermarkets are cracking down on what shoppers can purchase as panic about the coronavirus epidemic leads to wide-spread stockpiling. Pictured: Two men with trolleys full of goods are pictured outside a Costco store in Manchester