(NORTH CAROLINA NEWS NETWORK) — There are new COVID-19 concerns in North Carolina. Dr. Mandy Cohen, the Secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, has confirmed the highest amount of new COVID cases in over two months.  North Carolina had over 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported each day on Wednesday and Thursday. That’s more than 3-times the number of cases the state was seeing just two weeks ago, when it was seeing 300 cases a day.  Hospitalizations also continue to climb, hitting nearly 500 on Thursday. That’s 80 more than this time last week.  The growing Delta variant is being blamed on the increase, along with unvaccinated people.  Cohen says more than 99% of the new COVID cases are in people who are not fully vaccinated.