Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said at a press briefing on Tuesday that social distancing measures due to expire this week will be extended in a bid to contain the outbreak.
He also pointed to ongoing China-US tensions after the White House said it would end self-imposed restrictions on official contacts with Taiwan, a move likely to irk Beijing.
Net gold imports via Hong Kong to China, the world's top consumer of the metal, stood at 3.283 tonnes in November, compared with 1.807 tonnes in October, the report showed.
Japan Post Insurance rose 11.79% after media reports that it would buy back $2.9 billion of its own shares from its parent Japan Post Holdings, whose shares rose 4.12%.
The group was snared some 70 kilometres (43 miles) southeast of the city on August 23, authorities said previously, before being handed to police in the neighbouring mainland metropolis of Shenzhen.
The financial hub was rocked by pro-democracy protests last year that were largely halted by a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing, drawing criticism over eroding rights from countries including the US.
On Monday, the US said it was freezing any US assets and barring travel to the United States for 14 vice-chairs of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which spearheaded the tough new law.
Lam, speaking at her weekly press briefing, said the government would also study additional relief measures for those affected by the latest restrictions.
If the United States insists on going down the wrong path, China will continue to take firm counter measures to safeguard its sovereignty and security, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman with the foreign ministry told a briefing.
Wong’s sentence comes as critics say the Beijing-backed government is intensifying a crackdown on Hong Kong’s opposition and wide-ranging freedoms guaranteed after the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, a charge authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong reject.
Carrie Lam on Wednesday was granted the power to turf out any legislator who she deems insufficiently patriotic, without recourse to the city's courts.
The British flag was lowered over Hong Kong when the colony was handed back to China in 1997 after more than 150 years of British rule - imposed after Britain defeated China in the First Opium War.