Mobile city officials announced on Wednesday that 16 city employees -- 9 police officers, 7 firefighters -- tested positive for COVID-19. According to James Barber, the executive director of public safety with the city of Mobile, the public safety officials have been quarantined before they receive further testing.

The number has grown overnight from four public safety personnel who tested positive on Tuesday. Barber said at the tie that none of them were showing symptoms of illness at the time they were tested.

He said on Tuesday that 131 first responders – firefighters, police officers and emergency management service workers – were given a rapid blood test to determine if the coronavirus antibodies existed. The blood tests were provided to the city by Mobile-based Synergy Laboratories, which recently donated 500 kits to the city.

The workers who tested positive during the blood work have since undergone a nasal swab test to further determine if the virus was active.

Austal USA, among the city’s largest employers, also reported its first positive COVID-19 case. The person who tested positive has not been at work since March 17, but Austal officials say the employee claimed it was “for unrelated issues.”

Craig Perciavalle, president of Austal USA, said the employees who worked alongside that person were quarantined for one shift. He said it had been 13 days since the worker had been on Austal’s property.

Every one of the workers who had been in contact with the employee have since been screened for coronavirus, he said.

Austal, which has 3,700 employees, constructs and delivers military warships. The company’s work is viewed as a “national need” that is “unwavering and crucial” to national security, according to Assistant Secretary to the Navy James Geurts. The Mobile-based company will continue working through the COVID-19 pandemic to build warships inside its facility across the Mobile River from downtown Mobile.

Perciavalle said that Austal has had a pandemic plan activated since mid-February that includes. That plan includes hiring more people to assist with enhanced cleaning efforts, communicating to workers daily about the latest CDC guidelines, and implementing a leave policy for employees affected by school closures.

“We have continuously done enforcement of social distancing,” said Perciavalle. “When there is a situation where people are working close together, we take care of it in different ways, and we make sure our folks wear shields and gloves and masks. We have signs all over the place enforcing social distancing.”

He added, “We build ships and you can’t do that from home, but we’re doing everything we can to slow the spread and more.”

This story was updated at 5:18 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, to update the numbers of Mobile police and firefighters who tested positive to COVID-19.