A one-year-old boy was among the 44 new coronavirus cases confirmed as at yesterday noon.

The dependant's pass holder had returned from the United Arab Emirates and was confirmed positive on Sunday.

All the new cases announced yesterday were imported and had been placed on stay-home notice on arrival in Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

There were no new cases in the community for the third day in a row, and none from workers' dormitories.

Among the 44 new cases, there were four Singaporeans and two permanent residents who returned from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States.

One of the Singaporeans is a 19-year-old woman who returned from Britain on Dec 6. Although her Covid-19 swab done on Dec 16 came back negative, a pre-departure test she took on Jan 23, in preparation for returning to Britain, came back positive.

She has been classified as an imported case based on her travel history and because her serology test came back positive, indicating a likely past infection. "She is likely to be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA, which are no longer transmissible and infective to others," said MOH.

The cases announced yesterday also included seven dependant's pass holders who arrived from India, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. There was also a long-term visit pass holder who returned from the United States.

Another three of the new cases were student's pass holders who arrived from France, Indonesia and Kazakhstan.

Six more cases were work pass holders who departed from Bangladesh, India, Japan, Poland and Spain. There were also 17 work permit holders who returned from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The last four cases announced yesterday were short-term visit pass holders who arrived from India to visit their relatives here.

Yesterday's new cases take Singapore's total to 59,352.

The number of new cases in the community in a week increased to 13 in the past week, from 10 cases in the week before.

The number of unlinked cases in the community in a week decreased to three in the past week, from four in the week before.

With 25 cases discharged yesterday, 59,051 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 59 patients remain in hospital while 198 are recuperating in community facilities. None is in intensive care.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.