A dispute over a few dollars in bus fare, differing definitions of the term “senior,” and an ill-advised loogie in a time of public health panic ended in an alleged assault and the arrest of one Hong Kong man in Sham Shui Po.

The whole hullabaloo happened on Saturday, but video of the aftermath was only published by the Standard yesterday evening. The outlet reports that a 55-year-old man had boarded a Causeway Bay-bound bus in Sham Shui Po and tried to pay the reduced senior citizen fare of HK$2, a few bucks less than the normal fare of HK$9.80.

The driver, suspicious as to whether the man was in fact as old as his penny pinching would suggest, demanded to see some ID, which the passenger refused to present.

Apparently angry at being called out, and seemingly unwilling to merely cough up the extra seven bucks and change, the passenger went so far as spitting on the driver before trying to take off.

Now, spitting on someone is beyond rude at the best of times, but given the widespread public fear amid the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 — which can be spread by virus-carrying droplets of saliva and mucus, mind you — it was all the more unnerving.

Unwilling to take the loogie sitting down, the bus driver and some of his off-duty coworkers chased after the man and held him until police arrive.

The driver, who allegedly suffered injuries during the scuffle, was ultimately sent to hospital, while cops took the spitter into custody on suspicion of committing common assault.

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