a rash/spate of suicides, insecure, middle-aged worries, the elderly

‪#‎Dailychart‬: Suicide is sometimes dismissed as a curse of insecure youth or a regrettable answer to middle-aged worries. But across the OECD, the rate is highest among the elderly. In parts of Asia, it amounts to a crisis. In China and South Korea, the rate of suicide for those over 65 is more than four times of that for people under 35 http://econ.st/18xa2KV

Pay Raise for China's Foxconn Workers
New York Times
By DAVID BARBOZA SHANGHAI — Stung by labor shortages and a rash of suicides this year at its massive factories in southern China, Foxconn Technology said

rash² (răsh)
n.

1. A skin eruption.
2. An outbreak of many instances within a brief period: a rash of burglaries.

[Possibly from obsolete French rache, a sore, from Old French rasche, scurf, from raschier, to scrape, scratch, from Vulgar Latin*rāsicāre, from Latin rāsus, past participle of rādere.]