Around the nation scientists are finding more traces of SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater, including here at home.
Health officials are asking people to be more mindful if they start to feel sick.
While COVID-19 may be in the back of some people's minds since the days of the pandemic, the virus is still out there in our community.
With the recent uptick, Northern Nevada Public Health says it's nothing to be concerned about.
"I think it's important for people to understand the situation that there are more cases being reported, however it still is at a low level when compared to previous years," said Scott Oxarart, Communications Director, Northern Nevada Public Health.
Oxarart says that after the July 4 holiday it is pretty common to see more cases as people travel more and gather with family and friends.
Here in our area, scientists like Dr. Lin Li are using wastewater to help predict what direction things are going.
"This way is just to give us some time to prepare, to say okay what may happen in the next week, usually the warning time can go into one week or two weeks, so it just depends," Dr. Li said.
Wastewater is, in summary, people's bathroom trips.
Results of COVID can show up in wastewater about one to two weeks before symptoms manifest.
COVID cases used to be tracked from public testing at hospitals and pharmacies.
Northern Nevada Public Health says now most people are using at-home testing and that information is not tracked into their database.
That's where the wastewater testing really paints a full picture of what levels of COVID we're seeing in our area.
"People get sick, we even don't know or just we have very mild symptoms and are okay I'll just let it go," Dr. Li said. "However, everything that's infected into our body we will shed into the wastewater anyway. So the wastewater collects all the information."
Dr. Li says that the wastewater accounts for about 80 percent of Washoe County.
Northern Nevada Public Health reminds people that vaccines are still available if you would like to better protect yourself from the virus.
