NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Suffolk County has gone 24 hours without anyone dying of COVID-19, County Executive Steve Ballone said Friday.
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During a virtual news conference Friday afternoon, Bellone reported 47 new COVID-19 cases and zero new COVID-19 deaths — a milestone for a county that has lost 1,945 people to the virus.
“This is an important day for Suffolk County. We’ve been through a tremendous amount over the last few months,” he said.
Suffolk County saw its first confirmed COVID-19 death on March 16, he noted.
“And here we are, in the middle of June, essentially, and I’m very happy to say today that I can report zero deaths from COVID-19 over the last 24 hours,” he said.
“I have been waiting day after day after day to be able to get to that position,” he added. “It’s a great place to be.”
A total of 40,559 people in the county have now tested positive for COVID-19, he said. As of Friday, 134 people were hospitalized with the virus, 41 of whom were in intensive care units.
Bellone called Friday’s lack of fatalities “a measure of the incredible progress we’ve made.”
“It is a tribute to the men and women in our health care industry, our health care heroes who stood the line, who worked day after day in what I liken to the equivalent of a war zone for health care workers in these hospitals packed with COVID-19 patients,” he said.
“Putting their own safety at risk, and that of their own families as well, to save lives.”