For weeks now, all of us have been reading the nightmare headlines of tourists dying in the Dominican Republic (DR). Reading these reports, it would seem that all one has to do is step off your plane and …poof…. some sort of death curse will be placed on you and you will quickly become ill and die. Clearly from the headlines alone, it would appear wise to avoid traveling to the Dominican Republic.
Yet are the newsmaking headlines telling the full story?
The other day we read a different perspective on this story that we wanted to share to provide a full 360 view of the situation going on. Please note that the opinions below are the author’s, as published by the content provider, and do not necessarily represent the views of Travel N Relax or our employees.
In the article in SLATE – which you can read the full content of here – https://bit.ly/2G2I18b – the author makes the argument that statistically speaking the number of incidents that have occurred are but a speck and not even noteworthy from a true news perspective.
Indeed, the author notes, when you consider the news stories are lumping incidents from 2016, 2017 and 2018 to broaden the story and on average 12 American visitors to the DR die every year in road accidents, the story becomes much less dramatic.
Based on studies which the author illustrates in the article (link above) he notes that if 2.7 million Americans now visit the DR every year we should expect that roughly 400 American tourists will die while visiting the country in any given year. To be more specific, about 295 American tourists will die of natural causes during their trips, with 207 of those deaths being the result of a cardiovascular event.
The author states when you compare these numbers to the recent deaths we’ve heard so much about that only consists of 12 reported cases in 2019 (or maybe 17 in the past three years, depending how you count). Most of these have been attributed to heart attacks. Taken all together, these represent at most 3 percent of the total number of American tourists that would be expected to die while visiting the Dominican Republic in any given year and at most 6 percent of the total number of American tourists that would be expected to die from circulatory problems in particular.
Further the author debates State Department records indicate that since 2003, an average of 20 U.S. citizens have died from non-natural causes every year in the DR. Given this, he argues, if there is truly news in this story it’s because the numbers are so few!
Again, Travel N Relax is not in any way making light of this story. We, like you are following the headlines very closely and intrigued by what the various autoposys and studies being done will show.
That said, we also fully believe in providing a full 360 view of any story so that a truly educated decision can always be made. Whether you feel that the DR is safe, or not, is not our place to try to influence you either way. Nor is that the intent of this blog.
However you feel, Travel N Relax is ready to provide you with an exceptional and safe vacation whether to the DR, or to a destination thousands of miles away! Give us a call and let us take care of all the details while you truly Travel N Relax!
