Air Passenger Numbers Go Up, But So Does Number Of Unruly Mask-Refusers

CNN: The Number Of Unruly Passengers On US Flights Is Too High, FAA Says, So It's Extending A Get-Tough Policy On Masking
The Federal Aviation Administration will extend its stricter enforcement against unruly passengers -- specifically targeting those who disobey masking policies -- after receiving more than 500 reports of misbehaving passengers since December, the agency said Monday. "The number of cases we're seeing is still far too high, and it tells us urgent action continues to be required," FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said. (Wallace, Muntean and Silverman, 3/16)

NPR: More U.S. Travelers Are Flying Again Despite COVID-19 Risks
As COVID-19 vaccines roll out across the U.S., more travelers are taking to the skies. Friday marked the busiest day for the nation's airports since the middle of March 2020, when COVID-19 caused air travel to plummet. About 1.36 million passengers passed through security checkpoints Friday, according to figures from the Transportation Security Administration. That is the highest volume since March 15, 2020, when checkpoints reported more than 1.5 million passengers. But travel remains well below pre-COVID levels. In March of 2019, checkpoint traffic averaged more than 2 million passengers a day. (Hamilton, 3/14)

In other public health news —

The Washington Post: U-Conn.’s Geno Auriemma Tests Positive For Coronavirus, Will Miss Start Of NCAA Tournament 
Decorated University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma will miss the start of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament after he tested positive for the coronavirus. ... U-Conn. (24-1) won the Big East tournament March 8, bolstering its status as one of the favorites to win the NCAA tournament. The Huskies received one of the four No. 1 seeds in the tournament. (Bieler, 3/15)

CNN: Mental Health Issues Plague Nearly Half Of Parents Said Their Teens During The Pandemic 
Nearly half of parents reported their teenagers faced new or worsening mental health conditions since the pandemic began, a new poll has found. A survey of 977 parents with children ages 13 to 18 analyzed teen mental health conditions like anxiety, depression and aggressive behavior during the pandemic. The national poll, conducted by Ipsos for C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan Medical School, looked at how parents were helping teens cope and whether they believed their strategies were successful. (Marples, 3/16)

KHN: For Spring Season, Young Athletes Get Back In The Game Despite Covid Risk 
This spring, high school senior Nathan Kassis will play baseball in the shadow of covid-19 — wearing a neck gaiter under his catcher’s mask, sitting 6 feet from teammates in the dugout and trading elbow bumps for hugs after wins. “We’re looking forward to having a season,” said the 18-year-old catcher for Dublin Coffman High School, outside Columbus, Ohio. “This game is something we really love.” (Ungar, 3/16)

KHN: How Covid Has Changed Our Movement, As Revealed By Your Cellphone 
For all of our grousing about covid fatigue, a few novel trends are clear one year into the pandemic. In the early weeks of 2021, Californians are staying home way more than we did in our pre-pandemic life. Even so, we’re heading out to shop, dine and work far more now than in March 2020, when state officials issued the first sweeping stay-at-home order, or the dark period that followed the winter holidays, when we hunkered down as covid-19 caseloads exploded. And to the extent we are venturing out, we are using cars rather than resuming pre-covid commute patterns on buses and trains, a trend with troubling implications for transit services and the environment should it become long-standing. (Reese, 3/16)

Also —

ABC News and Good Morning America: 5-Year-Old Girl Receives Kidney Donated By Her Teacher 
A 5-year-old girl in Missouri did not have to look far to find a perfect match for the kidney she needed after being on dialysis for more than four years. Kayleigh Kulage, 5, of Pacific, Missouri, underwent a successful kidney transplant last month with her preschool teacher, Robin Mach. (Kindelan, 3/16)

NPR: Alcoholic Liver Disease Sharply Rising Among Young Women, U.S. Doctors Say
For many years, Jessica Duenas led what she calls a double life. She was the first in her immigrant family to go to college. In 2019, she won Kentucky's Teacher of the Year award. That same year, Duenas typically downed nearly a liter of liquor every night. By the time she was 34, she was diagnosed with alcoholic hepatitis, a serious inflammation of her liver that doctors warned could could soon lead to irreversible scarring and even death if she didn't didn't stop drinking, and quickly. "I couldn't keep down any food," Duenas says. "My belly was supersensitive, like if I pressed on certain parts of it, it would hurt a lot. My eyes were starting to get yellowish." (Noguchi, 3/16)

North Carolina Health News: Marine Vets Petition For Registry For Toxic Water Victims
In the yellowed photograph from 1968, a young Lisette Partain sits on a hospital bed cradling her newborn baby. A glass of water and a partially filled baby bottle rest on a bedside table. Mike Partain, the infant in the picture, believes his misery began at conception. Although it wouldn’t manifest itself for decades, Partain believes the water glass and the baby bottle contained toxins that for years had been leaching into the drinking water for Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville. (Barnes, 3/16)

ABC News: Black Christians Discuss How Faith Informs Their Stances On Abortion 
For Cherilyn Holloway, her support of Black Lives Matter has everything to do with her stance on abortion. When Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, Holloway made a point to discuss the tragedy with her sons. “Here's a man who was shot in the street, he couldn't defend himself, the same way a baby can't defend themselves in the womb,” she said. “Because they both are lives, and both are lives that matter. And the issue we are dealing with right now in our society is a life issue. We have built a society that does not value life, whether it is in the physical form or in the womb.” (Mejia, Yang and Smith, 3/15)