In the original, you know the other islanders can see a minimum of 98 BP (blue eyed people). And you know that they know that you know that they can see at least 97 BP.

Given that, the statement that there is at least 1 blue eyed person doesn't provide new info. The argument that this "synchronizes" them is a little strange. For all we knew, they were in the middle of counting to 100 days prior to this statement due to the aforementioned common knowledge that everyone already knew there were blue eyed people.