That's incorrect, in a subtle way. The villagers (every single one) knew that before. It isn't discovered knowledge. Everyone (including the visitor) knows there are 99 or 100 because they can count them already, prior to the visitor.
So nobody is suiciding for 99 days. As an individual who sees 99 other blue eyes, why would you think or not think that you have blue eyes on the next day?
If you can see 99 blue eyes, you know that all the other people see either 98 or 99 (if there's a total of 99 blue eyes) or 99 or 100 (if there's 100 blue eyes). However, if some people see 98 and know that there's at least 99 people with blue eyes, then they would all suicide. Since they don't, you know everyone sees either 99 or 100 blue eyes. Since you see 99, you must have blue eyes.
This does not help in deducing if you have blue eyes.
> then they would all suicide
No they wouldn't. Nobody should suicide at all. The visitor saying someone has blue eyes, was already known by every member of the village and every member of the village saw more than 1 person with blue eyes prior. Nothing is different because he said something.
> Since you see 99, you must have blue eyes
I don't know there's 100, so I don't know I have blue eyes.
You are ignoring islander A's view of B's view of C's view of ... Z's view of situation.
Think about 3 islander's, where A thinks "if I have green eyes, then B and C are in a situation equivalent to me not being here, and B sees exactly 1 blue eyed person C, and B knows that 'C sees 0 or 1 blue eyed people, but then C learned that 0 is impossible'"