The data is the first indicator case numbers could be going up. Since last fall, OU researchers have been testing the sewer water in many municipalities and the University of Oklahoma for COVID particles. “We’ve got this two-week lead time before the county health departments are aware of an outbreak occurring,” said Halley Reeves, VP of Community Health Impact at OU Health. The concentration levels detected went down in the metro in January and stayed that way until the past couple of weeks. “We’ve noticed in areas, pockets, that numbers have gone back up. That’s cause for concern,” said Bradley Stevenson, an associate professor in microbiology at OU.