"I felt vulnerable. I couldn't get myself together. I realised this is the new normal. I don't feel safe." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video She no longer felt safe travelling to work at a job she had always loved. None of the medical staff who have been attacked have gone public but Ms Kavanagh and another neonatal nurse from RNSH decided to speak out because of the number of hospital staff who are putting their lives on the line. "They are the ones who are putting the tubes down people's throats, they are putting themselves and their families at risk, and they go home and put their own kids to bed," Ms Kavanagh said.

"It is wrong," she said of these attacks. "This has got to stop." Loading She thinks the boys, who she believed to be about 15-years-of-age, only identified her as a nurse because she was wearing her blue scrubs beneath a zip-up sports shirt. Across NSW, other nurses have been reportedly spat at and criticised online and in public. A nurse was refused service at a cafe while another in northern NSW was denied accommodation because the landlord was afraid she would spread the virus, according to Brett Holmes, the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association's general secretary.

The union has received about 10 to 15 "shocking" reports from across the state. Mr Holmes said these attacks were based on "over-the-top-fear response", misinformation and ignorance of how the virus was spread. They often presumed that every healthcare worker was working in a high-risk area and carrying the virus on their clothing. Nurses understood infection control, and were "super conscious of not taking the virus home to their family." And if members of the public were practising social distancing, there was very little risk. "It doesn't have legs, or springs," Mr Holmes said of the virus. There was also an element of "racism on top of this ill-informed view", Mr Holmes said.

"Nurses who have Asian appearance are copping it worse," he said. Ms Kavanagh's colleague Liz (not her real name), told the Herald that while she was waiting for a bus to work from Manly on Sunday, March 29 a man walking along the Promenade made a detour towards her. He put his face close to hers and called her "a f--king idiot" before walking away. After working for so many years in the neonatal unit where parents were so grateful to the nurses for saving their babies' lives, Liz was confused. When she told her co-workers, they confirmed that they'd stopped wearing any identification because of similar attacks. It is wrong. This has got to stop. Shriley Kavanagh, neo natal nurse

Liz said the first thing she does when she gets home is to leave her shoes outside the door. She then washes her uniform in very hot water. She said nurses felt like they were playing "Russian roulette with the virus", trying to protect their patients, themselves and their families. "I can't get the elevator. I take the stairs but I don't touch the handles. I am always thinking, OMG, I hope I didn't get it today. You are also in fear. 'Are colleagues carrying it? Could they be asymptomatic? Are the parents visiting [the babies] carrying it as they come and go?'," she said. Loading NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Sunday that the abuse of doctors and nurses was "un-Australian" and "unacceptable".

A nurse in the RNSH's emergency department was also physically threatened, confirmed a spokesperson for the Northern Sydney Local Health District. He said the attacks were "totally unacceptable". The hospital had also been "overwhelmed with acts of kindness", including donations from the small to grand, he said. That included an enormous donation of Lindt chocolate. Most nursing staff in contact with people with COVID-19 wear full personal protective gear and regularly change their scrubs. There is little scientific research about how long and in what conditions COVID-19 survives on clothing. The vast majority of infections are picked up from direct droplet transmission from infected people coughing or sneezing, with little risk from contaminated clothing, said Adrian Esterman, professor of biostatistics at the University of South Australia's School of Nursing and Midwifery.