Sitting on the lap of his mother, Cindy Martinez, 9-year-old
Darrell Taylor grimaces as he receives a flu vaccination during
a free flu vaccine clinic Jan. 28, 2013, at the Capitol in
Sacramento, Calif. / Rich Pedroncelli, AP Although the flu is
beginning to wane nationally, it is sickening and killing
seniors at rates "higher than we've ever seen," a CDC flu expert
says. Last week, people older than 65 who died from a
laboratory-confirmed case of influenza died at a rate of 116 per
100,000. "We've kept rates since 2005 and we have never seen a
rate this high," said Michael Jhung, an epidemiologist at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The highest we've
ever seen in was 90 per 100,000." He expects those numbers to go
higher still. Hospitalization - and, in some cases, death -
follows several weeks after a person first gets sick. "We've
still got several weeks of the season yet, so it's going to be
much worse" before it's over, he said. "The deaths are still
accumulating." Each year, between 3,00