Goodbye Shanghai: After 16 years, COVID curbs send American family packing

American Heather Kaye and her family, including cat Mochi, are part of a wave of residents departing Shanghai, leaving behind their homes and memories, driven out by two years of strict COVID-19 curbs, including a crushing two-month lockdown. Heather and husband George arrived in Shanghai from New York in 2006 for a one-year adventure, but 16 years later their two-bedroom apartment in Shanghai’s historic former French Concession is the only home their children have ever known.