It is no surprise COVID-19 contact tracers in Multnomah County were overwhelmed from the get-go as identified by the recent county audit and reported in The Oregonian/OregonLive. “Multnomah County’s COVID-19 investigators were too overwhelmed to call even half of those sick, audit finds,” July 27). I would assume most other counties were as well.

If the county was overwhelmed, and just gave up trying to meet this criteria, imagine the burden placed on schools with far fewer resources who were also required to contact trace for much of the pandemic, with the teachers’ unions holding their feet to the fire. While I appreciate no one was sure how to respond to COVID-19 initially, Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Health Authority should have changed criteria and informed the public far sooner about what was realistic. Not doing so was a disservice to Oregonians and causes distrust in public health and leaders. I’m a lifelong Democrat and learning about this in the Oregonian instead of hearing proactive statements from state and county officials does not incentivize me to vote Democrat in November. This was an unattainable goal and I feel duped.

Marcia Callender, Beaverton