Sometimes you make reservations months in advance, to get a package deal. It seems to me that knowledge of the suspicious DR deaths, and probably the pace of their occurrence, has risen over the past 2 or 3 months.
So, people vacationing now may not have been aware of this when making the reservations.
Delta Airlines is allowing people with reservations to the DR to cancel with no penalty. Most hotels only make you pay for one or two nights upfront but I’ll bet that the all inclusives want a total payment.