An unexpected victim of the coronavirus crisis is one of Italy's largest Chinese communities, now dwindling rapidly after more than 30 years of growth in a small town in Tuscany.

First, the Chinese suffered discrimination as alleged spreaders of the disease. Then, as the community emerged almost unscathed amid Italy's growing death toll, they were held up as a model of how to fight it.

Now many are giving up, worn down by the Covid-induced recession and lured back to China by its greater success in combating the pandemic and brighter economic prospects.

Huang Miaomiao, a journalist from Zhejiang who lives in Prato, estimated about 2,500 people, or 10 per cent of the Chinese community, had gone back to China over the last year. Marco Wong, another town councillor, said the figure was “realistic”.

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