Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Monday

The latest:

COVID-19 cases continue to mount across Canada as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus becomes further entrenched.

Ontario reported more than 9,800 new cases of the virus on Sunday, Quebec counted nearly 8,000, and in Nova Scotia, more than 1,100 were confirmed over the weekend.

The high case counts came as new restrictions went into force in Quebec, capping private gatherings at six people or two household bubbles.

Meanwhile, public health experts expect case counts to continue to climb, given the high transmissibility of the Omicron variant, and that has renewed their concerns about the capacity of Canada's hospitals and health-care workers to handle another wave of the pandemic.

-From The Canadian Press, last updated at 7 a.m. ET

As of early Monday morning, more than 279.9 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.4 million.

In the Asia-Pacific region, China's local symptomatic COVID-19 cases crept up again, with most new infections reported in Xian city as it entered a fifth day of a lockdown, while Australian authorities refrained from imposing new curbs despite the country's first Omicron death.

Meanwhile, South Korea said it has granted an emergency authorization to Pfizer's COVID-19 treatment pill, Paxlovid. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Monday it expects the introduction of Paxlovid to help diversify options for COVID-19 treatments and prevent patients' conditions from becoming serious amid surging infections and critical cases in South Korea.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency says the government has signed contracts to procure Paxlovid pills enough to cover 362,000 patients. It says the Paxlovid pills will be delivered to South Korea as early as mid-January.

In the Americas, U.S. airlines cancelled more than 1,300 flights on Sunday as COVID-19 thinned out the number of available crews, while several cruise ships had to cancel stops after outbreaks on board, upending the plans of thousands of Christmas travellers.

Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic has identified its first case of the Omicron variant.

In Africa, health officials in South Africa on Sunday reported 5,604 new cases and 41 additional deaths.

In the Middle East, Oman will not allow employees in the public or private sectors to enter their workplace without a vaccination certificate that proves they are fully vaccinated, the health minister said in a news conference on Monday.