Late last year, Tania Sibree quit her well-paid job as a financial services lawyer in Hong Kong and returned to Australia rather than live a moment longer with the city's strict coronavirus restrictions.
Sibree, who said she had enjoyed the previous five years in Hong Kong, is one of hundreds — possibly thousands — of foreign expatriate professionals who have left or are planning to leave, threatening to dent the city's standing as one of the world's financial hubs.
"The hotel quarantine made it just so tough for people to travel and that was the big incentive to being in Hong Kong, it was close to home and my parents. But you cannot do that long in hotel quarantine with kids," she said. "Everyone had been thinking the restrictions would be lifted, it would get better and it would not go on for so long."