Amid pandemic, parents in LA smoke on closed playgrounds

Sydney Beckman ran under the yellow warning tape surrounding empty playground equipment and dropped her tiny body on a swing.

The 2-year-old had tried to open a gate blocking the large green slide from Anderson Park to Redondo Beach, but her father pulled her away – trying to explain that the playground was closed. They should, he joked, have to sneak “under the cover of darkness.”

“Look at her! She looks so sad,” Zachary Beckman said, laughing at his little act of defiance.

But the transformation of the playground into a non-fun zone angered the 38-year-old father in a way that belied his laughter.

Los Angeles County closed outdoor public playgrounds this week as part of a set of restrictions meant to slow an unprecedented increase in coronavirus cases. For many parents baffled by an array of official diktats – playgrounds and in-person education are closed, but malls are open for business and filled with buyers – a line in the sandbox has been crossed.

“Parents really take the brunt of it all,” Beckman said. “I understand the need for security, but the inconsistencies and the lack of logic are very frustrating.”

A few meters away, three adults have played on the tennis court, which remains open. None wore a mask.

Nine months of fatigue, many Californians have entered the “why-is-closed-while-open” phase of the pandemic.

And as new restrictions come into force, those who have followed the rules say they find it increasingly difficult to take orders from politicians who don’t always seem to heed their own advice.

Angry parents pointed out Governor Gavin Newsom’s presence at a birthday dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, even as he warned of Thanksgiving dinners; LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl dining out in Santa Monica hours after voting last week to uphold the ban on outdoor dining; and state lawmakers traveled to Hawaii last month to chat with interest groups while health officials discouraged travel.

“The economic disparities in the way they enforce the rules are just plain obscene,” Beckman said. “It is clear that California is ruled by rich people, not families. They opened bars before the playgrounds – how is that?

Much is opposed to the county’s decisions to close outdoor public playgrounds and ban outdoor dining while allowing a large number of indoor businesses to remain open at reduced capacity – including shopping malls. , tattoo and massage parlors and hair salons.

While the kids’ jungle gyms and monkey bars were deemed too dangerous, tennis courts, golf courses, beaches, skateparks, and hiking trails are still open. The same goes for outdoor gym classes with sweaty adults.

Playgrounds have become focal points of anger. The county has not publicly linked the coronavirus outbreaks to the playgrounds, which closed in March and only reopened the first week of October. Playgrounds in schools and daycares remain open.

“I know that playgrounds have been, really for many, misunderstood, and [their closure] is still creating a lot of hardship for families, ”Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said this week.

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

“They close restaurants but let people go out in public without any protection?” she says. “Football is a contact sport. Basketball is a contact sport. It’s weird.

The new restrictions come as authorities work to contain an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases during the holiday season, which has renewed fears about how the state’s healthcare system will handle a crushing new patients.

Still, the rules aren’t as tough as they were when the pandemic began, when non-essential businesses were shut down – along with hiking trails and beaches.

Ferrer said that before issuing the latest regulations, health officials “came and went for many days” on how to handle reports from local parks services on overcrowding, children playing without masks and the difficulty. to disinfect play 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 as to why each of these measures should be in place ”and the science behind it.

“When there are too many restrictions and the audience can’t understand and see the reason, it can completely prevent them from listening,” Sell said. “Trust – once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Public health is really going to have to communicate well over the next few months as we roll out the vaccines. “

When it comes to closing playgrounds, she said, officials need to remember that parents and children “need some kind of outlet.”

In a telephone interview, Sell’s children, aged 4 and 6, could be heard playing in the background. She and her husband both work from home in Baltimore now, and the kids are practically going to school. They don’t have a garden, so they go to a playground every day, masked, to keep them away from their screens.

In mid-September, two dozen lawmakers urged Newsom in a letter to reopen public playgrounds, denouncing their “indefinite closure” and disproportionate harm to low-income communities just yards away. They reopened two weeks later.

At the Earvin “Magic” Johnson Recreation Area in South Los Angeles this week, Oswaldo Romero entertained his 2-year-old daughter, Valeria, with a skateboard and chased her across the grass. Romero, 25, who lives in Watts and drives overnight for Lyft, said he doesn’t have a yard and is frustrated that public and McDonald’s playgrounds are closed.

“I need a place to take my child,” he says. “She is active. She needs to play.

Oswaldo said his wife’s aunt fell ill with COVID-19 earlier this year but recovered after two weeks. Although he said he understood concerns about the virus, he believes officials are “overdoing the security measures” and “there is no reason to keep the children’s areas closed.”

A 37-year-old saleswoman from Westfield Santa Anita, Arcadia, said she was saddened to see so many children at the mall. The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared losing her job, said the mall appeared to far exceed its allowed 25% capacity (until this week when that capacity was reduced to 20%), and that she tried to contact the county health department about it. She worked on Black Friday; the parking lot was full.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” she says. “You’ve closed the parks where it’s outside, but you want to keep the malls open inside?” If you want to open the malls and allow people to shop, open the schools. … It’s all about the money. “

Stores limit customers, but the hallways are crowded with people in long lines. Tables and chairs are gone, but people are standing to eat and drink without masks.

In Highland Park, Laura Mannino, a 41-year-old television writer, struggled to explain to her 5-year-old son why he saw “a police tape covering a space where he attended birthday parties and where he was going every day. ”

Harry, who virtually attends LAUSD kindergarten, believed the coronavirus only lived on play equipment because it was the only thing he saw roped. When his favorite playground finally reopened, he did well with his mother’s new rules: wearing a mask. Disinfect your hands before and after playing. Don’t crowd the slide with other children.

“If our state, city, and county can put together massive testing sites and programs, we can certainly provide basic information about playground safety messages,” Mannino said. “People say playgrounds are very busy areas. Then clean the playgrounds. The store’s products are highly sought after; we don’t see the county putting duct tape around the melons.

In her Facebook group for moms, parents expressed their fury at the recent decisions.

“We are conscientious,” Mannino said. “We follow the rules. But I see more and more frustrated parents. They take it personally because we are so exhausted.

Echoing the tone of other parents in interviews this week, she added, “Let my kid swing on a… swing.”