There were no new coronavirus deaths Thursday among Suffolk County residents for the first time since the county’s first recorded COVID-19 fatality on March 16, officials said.
The milestone came a week after Nassau County reported its first day with no coronavirus deaths and a little more than a week after New York City did the same.
“I’m very happy to be able to say I can report zero deaths from COVID-19 over the last 24 hours,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone told reporters Friday. “I’ve been waiting day after day after day to be able to get to that position.”
Suffolk still has the ninth most coronavirus fatalities of any county nationwide, behind Brooklyn, Queens, Chicago, and Los Angeles, according to Johns Hopkins University. Nassau ranks eighth.
Long Island broke 4,000 COVID-19 fatalities earlier this month. As of Friday, there were 4,108 coronavirus deaths on LI, with 2,163 in Nassau and 1,945 in Suffolk. There were 24,495 across New York State, 114,357 nationwide, 423,545 worldwide.
As for overall coronavirus cases, LI had 81,673 as of Friday, with 41,114 in Nassau and 40,559 in Suffolk. There were 381,714 statewide, 2 million nationwide, and 7.5 million worldwide.
“This is an important day for Suffolk County,” Bellone said. “We still have a ways to go. We still have much to do. This is certainly not over. But the numbers continue to move in a positive direction.”
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