A government official accidentally leaked the vaccination status of about 40,000 governmental employees from Oregon on October 18th, 2021, the same date as the vaccination mandate set in for all official employees. The labor union that spans across the entire United States of America and beyond is saying that the leak causes a breach of contract because the state of Oregon assured the Union that the vaccination statuses would remain private. However, evidently it did not remain that way.

Many people are upset at the “accidental” leak of information by the official. Before the email was sent to the press, they were asking daily, since August, for vaccination percentages from Brown’s offices for all of the branches that he oversees. That is reportedly how the Oregon Department of Administrative Services External Relations Director Adam Crawford mistakenly sent the list of vaccination information to the two press organizations, Oregon Live and the Salem Statesman Journal.

Junior Kaleb Schmidt thinks that the government is focusing their efforts on meaningless things and should re-focus on the people it governs. 

“Our government today I feel is weak in leadership and support, they are not focused on our people, but on the power they wield,” said Schmidt.

He thinks that the government does not deserve complete confidence from its people for this reason. However, they can be depended on in certain circumstances.

“I trust them enough to make good decisions, but I am not so certain that our current government has been focused on [making good decisions],” said Schmidt.

Others like senior Ian Francisco think that the government does not deserve any trust at all. He thinks that because, according to him, the government is in a sedentary rut.

“No [I do not trust the government]. As much as they say they make the right choices, I do not trust that. It’s in the end ran by old people stuck in the past,” said Francisco.

With that being said, it is agreed upon that the government is doing a good job with the handling of the pandemic. 

“The guidelines are good. I personally feel like since the flu is coming up an increase of infections could come so maybe tighten up restrictions if that occurs,” said Francisco.

Schmidt agrees with the statement that Francisco said. However, he wanted to respond and expand on how they could be doing a better job.

“I think that the government officials could be doing a good job, but they are so focused on mandating a vaccine or trying to phase out petrol cars by a certain date that they cant focus on real problems like racial segregation or training police to handle situations better, telling the governor of California to clean up the state,” said Schmidt.