SINGAPORE, 05 Dec (CNA)- Singapore reported 552 new COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths linked to the coronavirus as of noon on Sunday (Dec 5).

The Ministry of Health (MOH) also reported one more imported COVID-19 case who has tested "preliminarily positive" for the Omicron variant.

"The case is fully vaccinated, and has mild symptoms. He had not interacted in the community, and there is currently no evidence of any community transmission from the case," MOH said.

The 37-year-old Singapore permanent resident is currently recovering in an isolation ward at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

He arrived in Singapore from South Africa on board SQ479 on Dec 1, and was on the same flight as Cases 271487 and 2719586, MOH said.

"His pre-departure test in Johannesburg on Nov 29 was negative for COVID-19 infection. Upon arrival in Singapore, he was isolated at a stay-home notice (SHN) dedicated facility, and his polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests on Dec 1 and 3 came back negative.

"On Dec 4, he developed a fever and sore throat and was conveyed to NCID, where he tested preliminarily positive for the Omicron variant," MOH added.

The National Public Health Laboratory is conducting whole genome sequencing to confirm the variant.

The fatalities were aged between 52 and 96. All of them had various underlying medical conditions. MOH did not specify what these conditions were.

This brings Singapore's death toll from the coronavirus to 759.

The overall intensive care unit (ICU) utilisation rate is 51.2 per cent, down from 54.7 per cent on Saturday.

The weekly infection growth rate rose to 0.66 from Saturday's 0.63. This refers to the ratio of community cases for the past week over the week before.

The growth rate has remained below 1 since Nov 13. A figure below 1 means that the number of new weekly COVID-19 cases is falling.

The daily case count on Sunday is down from the 743 infections reported on Saturday. It is also the lowest since Sep 13.

Among the new cases, 537 are locally transmitted, comprising 523 infections in the community and 14 cases in migrant workers' dormitories.

The remaining 15 are imported cases, MOH said in its daily update released to the media at about 11.20pm.

As of Sunday, Singapore has reported 269,211 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.