Mississippi’s hospitals admitted more than seven COVID-19 coronavirus patients per hour on Wednesday, the state reported Thursday.

Mississippi State Department of Health officials said 178 patients were admitted into state hospitals on Wednesday. Hospitalization numbers have been rising with the most recent average being 144 patients per day.

The growing rise in hospitalizations comes from weeks of rising new cases of COVID-19 across the state, health officials said.

Mississippi reported its third-highest single-day number of new COVID-19 cases on Thursday with 3, 164 new cases in the last 24 hours.

Mississippi State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said the rapidly rising case counts are due to the more contagious Delta variant.

“We’re seeing broad, high and substantial transmission, really in all parts of our state right now,” Byers said. “One of the problems is that we see so much transmission of COVID that we see spillover (into vaccinated, but immunocompromised people).”

Byers said the trajectory of the rapidly spreading Delta variant has shown no signs of slowing.

“I anticipate we’re going to continue to see rises in cases and rises in transmission,” he said.