Amid the pandemic, L.A. parents fume over closed playgrounds - Los Angeles Times

She looks so sad,” Zachary Beckman said, laughing at her small act of defiance.

Los Angeles County closed outdoor public playgrounds this week as part of a set of restrictions meant to slow an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases.

“Parents are really taking the brunt of all this,” Beckman said.

California pioneered the COVID-19 stay-at-home lockdown.

California pioneered the COVID-19 stay-at-home lockdown.

State officials are considering the kind of stay-at-home order that helped curb the virus’ spread in the spring.

County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl dining out in Santa Monica hours after voting last week to uphold a ban on outdoor dining; and state lawmakers flying to Hawaii last month to schmooze with interest groups while health officials were discouraging travel.

“The economic disparities of how they’re enforcing the rules is just obscene,” Beckman said “It’s clear that California is being run by the wealthy, not people with families.

Many fume over the county’s decisions to close outdoor public playgrounds and ban outdoor dining while allowing a slew of indoor businesses to stay open at reduced capacity — including shopping malls, tattoo and massage parlors and hair salons.

Los Angeles issued a modified stay-at-home order Wednesday night mirroring new L.A.

The county has not publicly linked coronavirus outbreaks to playgrounds, which closed in March and did not reopen until the first week of October.

“I know the playgrounds have been, really for many, sort of not well understood, and [their closure] creates a lot of hardship again for families,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer acknowledged this week.

County tightens COVID-19 restrictions today: What you need to know.

County tightens COVID-19 restrictions today: What you need to know.

Margaret Foss, who walks at the Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Recreation Center several times a week, said the park is always crowded with adult exercise classes and people playing soccer and basketball, with few masks in sight.

The new restrictions come as officials scramble to contain a surge in COVID-19 cases during the holiday season that has renewed fears about how the state’s healthcare system will handle a crush of new patients.

Ferrer said that before issuing the latest regulations, health officials “went back and forth for many days” about how to handle reports from local parks departments about crowding, children playing without masks and the difficulty of sanitizing playground equipment.

Tara Kirk Sell, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who has focused on risk communication and misinformation during the pandemic, said health officials must “be prepared for a good answer for why each of these measures should be put in place” and the science behind it.

“When there are too many restrictions and the public can’t understand and see the reason, it can make them stop listening altogether,” Sell said.

Public health is really going to have to communicate well the next few months as we roll out vaccines.”.

As for closing playgrounds, she said, officials have to remember that parents and children “need some sort of outlet.”.

The latest maps and charts on the spread of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, including cases, deaths, closures and restrictions

Romero, 25, who lives in Watts and drives overnight for Lyft, said he has no yard and was frustrated that both public playgrounds and the ones at McDonald’s were closed

Oswaldo said his wife’s aunt got sick with COVID-19 earlier this year but recovered after two weeks

While he said he understands concerns about the virus, he thinks officials are “overdoing it with the safety measures” and that “there’s no reason to keep areas for kids closed.”

The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared losing her job, said the mall seemed to far exceed the 25% capacity it was allowed (until this week, when that capacity was reduced to 20%), and that she has tried to contact the county health department about it

“If our state and city and county can put together massive testing sites and programs, certainly we can do basic information on playground safety messaging,” Mannino said