The point is, I think, that the number of cases of Dengue fever in Puerto Rico is climbing rapidly, and is expected tocontinue to do so. Hence the "Red Alert" based on data collected by the CDC. The article is hardly reassuring. I travel to Puerto Rico frequently. So far this year I've been there 4 times, usually for short periods as an intermediate point when traveling elsewhere, though I stay with friends in the southwestern part of the island for about a week every winter.
I know the island quite well, and when I was in San Juan last month there was significant concern regarding Dengue. Breakbone fever we used to call it when I lived in Jamaica. It's nothing to take lightly. Little kids, for some reason, seem to get bitten by bugs more frequently than adults. People obviously need to make their own decisions about travel with small children, but these should be informed decisions. Statistically, much depends on the length of the stay. In parts of India where really high rates of Dengue exist one health official estimated that spending a year or more there reliably resulted in a 100% infection rate! Puerto Rico is nowhere near that situation, but government officials, always aware of tourism issues, do not issue red alerts lightly.
When I was the parent of a young child, ages ago, I took him with me all over the Caribbean and Central America. I'd get sick on occasion, but he never did. It took a year in Korea with the military to bring him down with a fever that put him in a coma and nearly killed him. He spent months in hospitals recovering. Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, as a small boy, no problem. It's all a crap shoot, in the end. Being overprotective, of yourself or of your kids, is worse than being a trifle reckless at times.