Novel coronavirus infections have spread nationwide from a church in the South Korean capital, raising fears that one of the world’s virus mitigation success stories might yet suffer a disastrous outbreak, a top health official has said.

According to Reuters, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 288 new cases, marking a week of triple-digit daily increases, but offering a ray of hope in that there was no surge from the previous day’s tally of 297.

The latest outbreak has been driven by hundreds of cases in a church run by a radical conservative preacher whose followers have also attended anti-government protests in central Seoul in recent weeks, seeding infections there too.