Playgrounds have emerged as focal points of the anger. The county has not publicly linked coronavirus outbreaks to playgrounds, which closed in March and did not reopen until the first week of October. Playgrounds at schools and day-cares remain open.

“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.

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.

“They’re closing restaurants but letting people hang out publicly without safeguards?” she said. “Soccer is a contact sport. Basketball is a contact sport. It’s bizarre.”