I would be one and welcome back to enter the ether the podcast all about the upcoming third person mobile a three-year-old clash of I am your host the one and only mangoes joining me as always is my friend co-host and all around swell guy jelly knees How you doing jelly? I'm pretty good mangoes Happy to be back doing easy Were you miming me again? No, I would never Notice till I was done. I was so into it. I don't know what you're talking about No, but I'm excited to be back with ETE man. I've missed it, and I'm glad that the community's missed it as well Like it's a warm fuzzy feeling that like everyone's like where's ETE. It's like it's coming. I promise I think that's both of our faults. I was going I was going to complain. I was going to take full responsibility for my absence, but uh you also Hey But it's all good. We're back now at least it happened at the same time. Mm-hmm We're gonna catch up tonight We're gonna talk about a lot of the stuff that's been going on with ethereal since we since our last episode Which was about a month ago. Maybe more than a month. I'm not even sure and Yeah, that's it's we're gonna talk about the Kickstarter. We're gonna talk about the cinematic overview the There are cinematic trailer. I should say we're gonna talk about some of the videos They've been releasing and we're talking about the UI and the improved UI that they've had they've had all kinds of stuff going on And we haven't had a chance to talk about it. So jelly. Let's get into it tonight um, I Guess we should start off with probably the biggest thing and probably the saddest thing which is the Kickstarter Did not work out for them Yeah, I mean so the Kickstarter was running for about 30 days and it had a $75,000 goal And I think at the end it got to about 30,000 was where it hit just before the end of the Kickstarter happened But it gave a lot of insight for the ethereal dev team of like what the community wants to see what they expect to see And just where we're at in terms of development, but we can expect For lack of a better way to put it from the community and their response So even though the Kickstarter didn't make it, I think it's a very positive direction for the Fuji team To like be like, okay, we know where we stand, right? That's the most important thing We know where we stand now. We know where to go and improve on all the different aspects So it's sad that it didn't make it, but I think it will be a good thing moving forward As good as it can be, right? It's it's still sad, right? But um, there will be alternate funding methods coming in the future So that's something we're still working on the initial details for There's been talks of doing like a patreon where it'll be Lower barrier to entry or the majority of the community members.  It's not good that they didn't meet their patreon goals. However I don't think that I don't think they ever were going to go to meet that goal of $75,000 Like that was a very high goal to set for a moba In 2021 mobas are a dying breed. Um, I have full faith that ethereal will kind of um Bring that back a little bit. I think this is going to be the next big game, but To ask people to Get involved in a kickstarter for a moba is a lot to ask and $75,000 is Quite a bit to ask Especially seeing as how they've already made like over a hundred thousand dollars on nft sales So I think that's probably the route they need to go if they do If they do like restart on like indiegogo or something Then they need to set a much lower goal and then set stretch goals Like this is the goal we want to meet and then if we reach this goal, then we'll and you know, We'll implement this or we reach this goal will implement this um, that's the way kick starters work quite a bit like You you rarely see a kickstarter that has met its goal that didn't have also have stretch goals Like they didn't set their initial actual funding goal From the beginning and I think ethereal set their initial funding goal from the beginning and I think that was a mistake Yeah, I mean something you and I talked about before I joined the ug team because you and I got a preview of the kickstarter back in a while ago I don't remember when that was it's been a while but Something you and I talked about and that we mentioned to the ug team is that that goal may have been a little high right like that That's something that's feedback that we gave To them and by the time I joined the team that had been all solidified. So that wasn't something I could influence uh, but That's a big thing that we have to ug has to take into consideration going forward is like what like I said, what the expectation from the community is in terms of what ug can expect and also just where they have to go from here in order to Take those those things more of a reality for themselves Yeah, I think um I think patreon is the way to go I think there's enough people interested in ug That they can give them a monthly flow of income to start spending on a variety of things If they if they do a patreon, I'm on board. I'm going to sign up for that patreon. Um, but what I expect though Is something in return for that money um Kind of like I guess project stamina at this point is kind of a bad example But the way they did the pay their their patreon posts I would love to see something like that from ethereal some some exclusive content coming only via patreon and uh, you have to buy in to receive that content whether that be lore or Actual game updates. I don't really care, but I think patreon is the way to go for them Yeah, like I said, it's something something we're definitely looking into as patreon That's kind of the one that I think I prefer the most as for a plethora of reasons Uh, but I think exactly like you said, it's it's something that the community can have more direct instance in right We can do posts over time make them exclusive Um, something we're looking into as well is doing cumulative rewards So even if you mangoes come in at five dollars a month Right, if you over the course of the time you've backed whatever we go with Decide to you've backed a total of twenty dollars you get certain rewards for meeting that twenty dollar cumulative goal Rather than just your individual five dollar monthly um trying to Offer a more incentive to doing that even though it's got a lower Barrier to entry for a lot of community Mm-hmm. I think that's a great idea Because yeah, it feels bad that somebody that can contribute Fifteen dollars a month gets more than somebody that contributes five dollars a month even though That person that's been contributing five dollars a month has been doing so for much longer You know, I mean everybody has A different financial situation sometimes you can afford fifteen dollars a month sometimes you can afford five dollars a month And I would really love to see the five dollar a month people are rewarded for their loyalty Yeah, I definitely think that that's something I have not seen other Companies doing in terms of those cumulative rewards That's something I really want to do for the ethereal community being someone that came from the ethereal community That would be such a thing For me that I would have been like that's rad right I can do five dollars a month and slowly earn those of those bigger rewards that I can't afford to do in a lump sum I think that's just a great option for the community It's like playing a free play free to play game and only accumulating in-game rewards sort of thing But yeah, I mean so unless you had anything else on the Kickstarter or the future for that I want to get on to the gameplays man goose No, that's it. Let's get on to the gameplays go for a jelly So we started out with the Talos gameplay then we did Dante and Leah. I believe so far um the Talos gameplay came out alongside the cinematic And the Talos gameplay no sugarcoating here Got a lot of uh constructive criticism from the community Um And it was a good thing to see right it shows a the community that the game is playable Right that we had a game playable Full kits the whole nine yards Right, but there's still a lot of work to go. It's still a pre alpha build. I know you've played at man goose, right? It's but the abilities are there the general animations are there Even though those need some work once the mo cap suits come in But all in all it's a playable game Then we took a lot of that feedback and then into the Dante gameplay showcased a lot of the the other elements and a different character Then Dante gameplay got feedback and we implemented that stuff into the lea gameplay and then showed lea as well as flying And not how all of that is going to work And the more gameplays are coming in the future that'll do the exact same thing and show the updates So this we kind of We knew to an extent that the Talos gameplay Was going to look the way it did But we wanted to show like this is where we started now. We're here right like we we've Every time we're one upping ourselves saying like okay. Yeah, you're right.    Oh, it just feels so good And just just weaving those auto attacks in between all those abilities and like since he has abilities that recast Oh Like q basic q basic. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's so good Oh, yeah, so much fun Um, and radio severer has so much range on it and then applies the bleed. Oh, that's so much fun So I'll actually give all the e to e washers listeners Whoever you are and you man goose a little blooper about Talos that we realized recently His radio sever had an infinite vertical hitbox Oh, really? So we were in testing the other day and I lia flew overhead But she was like one hit And I hit r just because I was and she died and it was like, oh This is great. I love this. Can we keep this? Oh, and yeah, she managed to die from it greatest feeling ever as a talos. I was like, haha, I got the flying lady screw you That's what tall axe We got it fixed right afterwards, right, but it was like, oh interesting. I didn't realize that was a thing So it was a cylinder instead of a cone exactly Oh, that's amazing so much fun I think that's going to be a big challenge going ahead for ethereal is cylinder versus cone And when it comes to abilities Because when you're good like right now lia is the only one that's that flies around but there's still a lot of verticality in the game but um Yeah, there's going to be more people flying so you're definitely going to have to pay attention to that to those uh those capsules It'll be interesting. That's for sure to go through all that kind of stuff So, uh All right, let's let's get into talking about their um their cinematic slash gameplay reveal trailer.  Oh, it was just really good Really good. I'm not crying.  What's the voice actors named Daniel Daniel hodge. Yeah Daniel hodge Such a great job on the lore when he was voicing the lore portion such a great job I only wish I only wish That they had started with a little bit of gameplay And then led into the lore Because I think that hurt them a lot in the Kickstarter is because somebody looking into the game They're getting like Four or five minutes of lore before they ever get any gameplay to find out any indication of what the game's going to be I'll be going to be all about I think that really hurt them in the end. I love their lore They have great lore, but I think that should have been weaved in amongst gameplay and cinematics But they they went full force from the start Lore for like three minutes Which is cool for like a follow-up trailer But not the initial trailer and definitely not the one you want to post On Kickstarter because you got to hook people in you got to hook people in Yeah, I mean so the one I had influence on was the third the gameplay section, right? So I love hearing all the good things about that um But absolutely like it's it's Like I was saying before there's a lot of things that ug is learning from that whole aspect right of the cinematic kickstarter itself and Knowing what to do in the future going forward of posting gameplay Like like you said hooking people in then maybe dump a little bit of lore And kind of keeping that cycle going Um because new people coming to the game have a hard time when they see Five minutes of lore and then five minutes of gameplay afterwards, right? It's just that little bit of like I have to sit through how long of this before I can see what I'm backing what I'm putting my money into So learning experience across the board, but definitely good insight for sure It's like subverse whenever you play that and You came for one thing and then when you get 10 minutes of backstory It's like come on now You know what i'm here for oh, yeah Oh, yeah, but overall the cinematic trailer if it would have been the second in a series Fantastic fantastic um I really like the little cutscenes they had the little cinematic cutscenes They had a lot of really good stuff going on. I just don't think it was right for the very first I don't think it was right for the kickstarter video. That's that's about all i'm saying And I wish I had Daniel hodge's voice Don't we all seriously Don't we all I would just like walk around places talking like him Make people like this epic voice walking around. I love it Do you want to get into the ui improvements? Yeah, so the ui got basically completely overhaul um Before in the talos video and dante's video there's a lot of feedback on the ui And we were already working on it by that point, but it was it was kind of that like great We are making the right decision by reworking this ui Okay, the people Disliked the first version for a number of reasons And so the goal of the new version of the ui was to make it much cleaner and take up way less screen real estate than the previous one Uh, I don't remember the exact figures but If I remember correctly we about have The amount of screen space that was being taken up by the ui While still keeping almost every detail that was on it before on screen so That just was a change that had to be made because when you're taking up A certain percentage of screen real estate, right? It's harder to see the game itself And that's what we're there for we're not here to play ui the game We're here to play a theory that has a ui, right? So it's That change was absolutely something we were excited to implement and change And then when the new ui went out with lia's video a lot of people were like this is way better Like this fixes a lot of the issues that we had with it Certain small tweaks here and there health bar is bigger or items looking slightly different That's fine. Those are tweaks we can absolutely make being in the stage of development we're in Um, but no knowing that the community responded well to that ui change Spends a lot on our end to see those changes having an effect I'm really happy to see that because I'm really happy to see that you guys Are taking input from the community Internalizing it and then making it a realization because you guys have really good heads on your shoulders, but You know a thousand heads are always better than 10, you know and uh The community has a really great idea stuff that will just blow you away And i'm really happy to see you guys taking that input from the community and making it a reality Yeah, that's something that I being as part of the marketing team That's I look at almost every comment on every youtube video I look at any post facebook reddit instagram the whole nine yards. I'm looking at the comments of like What is what are these people saying? What is the like outlier? Thing that they really want changed something we did internally was we actually created a a excel sheet and ranked each like comment for criticism about things and like percentage based on percentage went okay This is the thing that has the biggest thing. Let's work on that first. This is the next biggest thing Let's work on that next like Truly ranking these in terms of importance For the community and then going down the line of of implementing those fixes and changes right Is that your official job title is just as um marketing? Yes uh Because I think of you as everything but coding I mean I don't think that's my everything but coding is my official job title But whether or not that's what I do is a whole different story Yeah, because I think you have a massive amount of input in the game that makes me really happy because You are a gamer's gamer.  I'm just good at having a personality of being entertaining. I guess and uh And you are as well, but you're also just very good at the games you play and uh, I'm excited about what you're going to bring to the team as a UG member I know you've been a UG member for a while now, but I don't know. I just feel like maybe Maybe it's the alcohol talking But I feel like uh, just give you a good shout out because you have definitely had a positive impact on UG's development so far. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I'm not again. I'm not crying. You're crying. It's fine. It's fine Uh, but I guess what you could say is I'm a man of many tinfoil hats, so But I Titans now that you're an inside man. I don't know.  You've been nominated Can't back down now. I think sardy might be a better candidate for tinfoil titan Oh, dude, sardy sardy's on top of it sometimes. Yeah I'll be like dropping hints since there'll be the first one in my discord being like I figured it out. It's like, oh, thanks sardy. Okay Yeah Yeah, sardy This was the first come to mind because I've I've been looking forward to playing some streets of rage with him, but uh Yeah, sardy Oh, I said that's so weird. Okay, so I think is is that about all we wanted to cover tonight or are there some more stuff? Think that's everything. I mean, there's always so much so much stuff Oh mo cap we can talk about the mo cap and I can give a little more information on that Uh, so we talked about that. We're gonna have a mo cap Suit that'll help with a lot of those animations. We are updating some of the animations in the meantime to make them feel better overall But they're not going to be perfected or polished to the fullest extent because we know this mo cap suits coming Uh because of delays due to the ponderosa we're in the Company that that's purchased the mo cap suit Is actually hiring credo's mo cap actor to do some animations for us Which is currently in the works. We should be getting those relatively soon Which is just a cool thing to be able to say like we have animations from god of war The credo's mo cap actor. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, like that's In in my marketing brain. I'm like that is such a huge like check mark. We can add to our thing add to our list That is so worth the delay in getting the mo cap suit So worth it 100% like it's just one of those things And so once we get the mo cap suit It's gonna be full bore into mo cap getting all the all the animations updated making them feel better polished out The whole nine yards So we're just waiting for that to come in But it's it's super exciting. I think for ug and it'll help Level up the the feeling of the game. I think once we have all those new animations I mean I'm sure he's great at his job And I'm sure he's going to do some great animations but just Oh my god, just the name attached Exactly Like there's an indie game like an indie metroidvania that I'll follow called steam dolls And they have david hater the voice of solid snake that does all the The voice acting for that game. That is a huge draw for that game like Otherwise that game would be just another metroidvania Again, I miss they see a metroidvania's but they got david hater. Exactly and right now ethereal's got creative Like it's such a big thing We could be like, yep, that's us. We got that guy. Like, what are you gonna say? Super super cool for Dallas not so great for noxus Well, you don't want a big muscly guy doing animation work for noxus. What are you talking about? Here comes my beam Exactly, exactly Yeah, that'd be great though. Oh, man I love it. I'm sold. We're we're changing everything. He's noxus from now on. He's just gonna be Ah He's just going to do animations for not. Oh, I'd be so pissed. We'll get him on noxus malaya Kalea like we'll just go down the line of the female the like Super small female characters. Those are the ones.  Oh my god Not david hater.  I mean you guys haven't seen her kit yet. So you never know Secretly kalea suplex and people Oh, I love that idea so much.  All right jelly. Did you have anything else you wanted to talk about tonight? I think that's everything just keep an eye out for updates that are going to come from the ug team pretty quick here try to one um Uh, any plugs you got you've been doing anything. Uh, I have not I've been working on ethereal mostly so And play in the rocker. Yep. That's those are the two things I've been doing. That's about it What about you man goose? Uh, I I have stepped into the uh, the realm of animation. I released my first animation um tonight as we're recording it will be Two days ago if you're watching this live so um If you want to check that out, I think it's pretty cool. It's kind of cute And then like there's the members only which is kind of uh A little more brutal But yeah, if you want to check out my animation videos, I really appreciate that I would love for them to take off because Just animation is really interesting to me. But uh, yeah, that's about it Oh man Yeah, go watch this stuff. I got the notification about the members only thing. I was like, oh Oh, did you really right on yeah, check it out. It's a little more brutal than the uh In the original Okay guys, uh Great to get back up with you guys Great to get to to get back into doing into the ether really loved on this show Really love hanging out with jelly. I haven't been doing The tests as much as I should be but This is a really good chance to reconnect with jelly.  I like jelly. I really do and it's and it's fun to hang out with him it's fun to do these shows but We're all looking forward to this game that we can all play together But until then I hope you all join us as we enter the ether Man goes


So, in the previous lecture we were looking at the linear quadratic Gaussian team and I had mentioned to you that the this particular team has the property that every person by person optimal solution is also team optimal. Now, remember that if the linear quadratic in a linear quadratic team what we have is that the cost is quadratic in the in the actions of the players.  The dependence on psi is linear in this sort of way the information that that player i receives is a is a is a linear function of psi. So, it is some h i times psi where h i is a full row rank matrix and what one has to choose is u i which is a function of y i u i equal to gamma i of y i. Now, because of because of this particular nature of this problem so because u is is because l is strictly convex in because q is positive definite l is strictly convex in u and because it is quadratic it is also continuously differentiable in u and this holds for each fixed psi. Now, if psi itself is Gaussian that means it is a Gaussian vector then in that case we have a linear quadratic Gaussian team. Now, otherwise it is just some linear quadratic team now in in either case because l is l satisfies the hypothesis of this theorem here so if you have a linear if you have a static team in which u 1 to u n l of u 1 to u n comma psi has the property that l is continuously differentiable and strictly convex in u 1 to u n for each fixed psi then every person by person optimal solution is also team optimal. So, then so consequently every person by person optimal solution of your of the of of this particular team problem this is your LQ this is this the LQG team would also be a team optimal. So, it is easy to see that these hypothesis are being satisfied most the this follows from the positive definiteness of Q the quadraticness of this and the fact that h the information structure is that in y i is a function of only psi. So, y so this problem is therefore a static team problem alright. So, now let us come to let us come to the special case of the linear quadratic Gaussian team this the above result has only told us that every person by person optimal solution is team optimal it has not told us what the nature of the of the solution actually is. So, now in order to do that let us let us look at the following make a few observations here. So, we so the cost that we have let us we can we can write out this this cost in the in this following form.  Now, we can it turns out that one can write out this cost in the in a in the following sort of form where you have you write u minus let us say q inverse q inverse another vector r which could potentially depend on psi times q and u minus q inverse another vector r that potentially depends on psi plus some other stuff which does not depend on u independent of u all I have done here is really completed the squares. So, I noticing that the expression on the left here is actually a convex quadratic it means it is very much very close to being a perfect square I have sought I all I have done here is basically completed the squares completed the squares. So, this complete completion of squares can all you would have seen it in scalars you can but you can also do it in vectors another way of thinking about this is that notice that q here is some matrix which is potentially a dense matrix but it is positive definite and it is symmetric. So, I forgot to mention q is positive definite and symmetric it is positive definite we do not need a symmetric. So, q notice that q here is a is potentially a dense matrix. So, thanks to this q you can we can we can write q using its eigenvalue decomposition and find that q can in fact be broken down into some matrix like this into something like u minus u sorry into p capital lambda p capital lambda t. So, this where this capital lambda is a diagonal matrix diagonal matrix of eigenvalues eigenvalues of q. So, because of this kind of this kind of transformation or what I just called completing the squares what one can do is basically write out this the expression that you have on the left in this sort of form. Now, once you have written it in this sort of form in fact we you can later see that this R in fact is actually linear the it turns out here in this case because of this because of the dependence or because of this particular because this term is linear in psi it actually turns out that R itself is linear in psi. So, this itself turns out to be linear in psi. So, once this is linear in psi and psi itself is a Gaussian vector then this cost now starts resembling the cost here starts resembling is similar to is akin to a mean square estimation it is akin to a mean square estimation of a Gaussian of a Gaussian given given another vector which is Gaussian. So, it is as if what one is doing is basically doing a mean square estimation of some kind of Gaussian vector given the knowledge of another Gaussian vector. And these Gaussian vectors how are they derived well they are all derived from taking linear combinations of the same Gaussian vector psi. So, consequently the vector that we are estimating is and the vector that who is through which we are getting the information they are all jointly Gaussian. And therefore, the theory of jointly Gaussian random variables applies and consequently what we find is that what each player is doing in the optimal strategy for each player to do in this problem turns out to be to play a linear strategy. So, the so the our main result we find is that u i equal to some lambda i times y i is the optimal strategy. And the way to prove this actually goes through using the earlier result. So, so if you assume that each player is playing a linear strategy then it becomes then all of these then all the use also become all the other use become linear functions of linear functions of psi. So, once all the once the once all players other than player i play linear strategies the the strategies of the other players become linear functions of psi and the optimal action for player i then is to pick is is to do some sort of a mean square estimation based on the cost that is involved and that then also becomes a linear function of its own information. So, the which means that if the others if if the others play a linear strategy it becomes optimal for player i to also play a linear strategy and then this is this from this if one can argue that the that a particular type of tuple of linear strategies is actually team is actually person by person optimal. And once it is person by person optimal we know from the previous result that it is also it is also team optimal. So, one basically argues that if u j star is equal equal to lambda j times times y j for all j not equal to i then u i star then the optimal action for player i is to also play a linear strategy i. So, if then u i star equal to this is is optimal. So, a linear strategy is is optimal in response to lambda j for j not equal to i. So, in a so therefore it becomes optimal for all the other players for for the other players to play linear strategies. So, this ensures therefore that that person by person optimal linear strategies are person by person optimal and therefore linear strategies are also team optimal. Now this this actually is one of the once one set of results which are which are rather where it is once one problem class in which the static team problem has actually been solved very cleanly not too many other results like this are known the LQG static team is therefore also one of the most widely applied structures in in team decision theory. So, with this we have conclude with this we have concluded our study of static team problems and come to the conclusion of with with a study of linear quadratic linear quadratic Gaussian teams. So, from here now we will go into problems that are of a dynamic nature and we will study those we will study those problems in in a little bit more depth and we will see how a version of the Wittson-hausen problem actually corresponds to corresponds to what looks like a communication problem. Let us now cast our mind back to the Wittson-hausen problem. So, the Wittson-hausen problem remember the what what do we know about it we know that it is a linear quadratic Gaussian problem we know that it has non classical information pattern we know that in that the optimal controller is for that problem are not linear. So, some kind of non-linear controllers are optimal we also know that we have that the that there is a dual effect because of the kind of information structure that we have there is a dual effect in this problem and finally what we do not know about the problem is that we do not know the form of the optimal controller we just know it is something non-linear but we do not know what it is. Now, let us let us cast think back about this and let us recall again the role that the first controller plays in the in the Wittson-hausen problem which is what we have understood by the term dual effect. So, in the in the Wittson-hausen problem you have so this is Wittson-hausen. So, this is the Wittson-hausen problem. So, you have a a source or we have an the initial state as x 0 this is being seen by the first controller who takes a who applies a control gamma 1 and produces an action right that is his action. Now, this action we denoted by u 1 now this action had two different effects this action was present in the cost function of the controller. So, it is present here in the cost and therefore it has this is what we consider as the direct effect. So, this is the direct effect of this of this action and because that is what directly affects the affect the cost function. Now, the other indirect effect let us say the indirect effect is that gamma gamma 1 came is that gamma gamma 1 was also present was also impacting the information of the second controller right. So, because through through the information of the second controller. So, so this was the indirect effect. So, when you came to the second controller the the information of of gamma 2 was affected was dependent on gamma 1 right and then when and then gamma 2 chose its action as a function of this function gamma 1 right and this is what we called the dual effect this was a manifestation of the dual effect. Now, the we have seen before that therefore as a result of this dual effect there is a dilemma for the choice as far as the choice of gamma 1 is concerned. Gamma 1 can say well I want to minimize the direct cost by choosing the right kind of action u 1 that affects the cost directly or I can say well I want to also focus I want to minimize the indirect cost which is that affects the information of gamma 2 which then will affect the action of gamma 2. So, so the dilemma for gamma 1 is to choose the right balance between the direct cost and the indirect cost right. So, the dilemma for gamma 1 is striking in striking the right balance between the direct cost and indirect cost. Now, in addition to what I just mentioned that we know about the Wittson-Auser problem we also know a few other things. We have also seen variants of this problem that look that we were able to solve right. So, we have seen variants which we have been able to solve rather easily. So, what was one of those variants one of those variants was wherein was one where the second controller did not have a non classical this is one of the variants was where the problem did not have non classical information where the we somehow gave access of x 0 to the second controller. So, this was one of the variants we considered one of our one variant was one variant was gamma 2 as access has access to x 0 as access to the initial state. In other words it has access to the information that the first controller has when it takes its action. So, as a result this becomes the which makes it a classical information structure. Now, because this is now a classical information structure now we can say that we were actually able to solve the problem rather easily. We found there that we found what the optimal controllers there were and in fact found the optimal cost as well under those controller. So, now what do we learn from this particular this particular example what this we learn is that if this information here of x 0 is supplied to gamma 2 then in that case the optimal choice the finding the optimal controllers is rather easy to do. In other words this dilemma is this dilemma between striking the right balance between direct and indirect cost is not that hard dilemma. So, it is rather it is quite easy to know what the optimal action then should be. So, what we find is therefore that if the information of the initial state there actually is no dilemma between direct and indirect cost. So, if the information of x 0 is present with gamma 2 then there is no dilemma between direct and indirect cost. Now, what this means is that the root of this dilemma is the lack of knowledge of x 0. So, if this x 0 could somehow be communicated to gamma 2 then this dilemma goes away and therefore in that case the problem becomes rather easy to solve. So, in other words the core of the dilemma between for controller 1 is really the dilemma between taking the optimal control action and all and between doing a some sort of a communication which is communicating enough about x 0. So, that gamma 2 can then take its action rather it can take its next action and together these two actions turn out to be optimal. So, the crux of the dilemma in the Wittson-hausen problem is the dilemma between communication between control and communication. This is what we find. So, thanks to this we can now ask ourselves we can ask an interesting question. So, if this is really the dilemma between control and communication then there ought to be extreme cases of this particular problem in which either one of the effects is present or the other effect is present. So, what are the extreme cases then of the Wittson-hausen problem? So, there are one can talk of two extreme cases. The first is the an extreme first extreme case is when you have classical information structure. First extreme case is what is called the classical information structure. Now, why is this an extreme case? This is an extreme case because in this case the information of the initial state is already available with the second controller. So, therefore there is no need for communication. So, in this when one has classical information structure the information of the initial state is already available with the second controller and therefore there is no need for communication. The other extreme case is one where you have pure communication. See the other extreme case is one when you have pure communication. Now, why is this the other extreme case? See notice that the dilemma in the Wittson-hausen problem is the dilemma between control and communication. When we take the classical information pattern we have taken communication out of the picture and the first controller can focus only on control that means choosing the right control action without bothering about how it is affecting the information of the other agent. Because the information of the other agent is independent of its choice of policy. So, the classical in this classical information pattern the here in this case the the here the communication aspect is irrelevant communication is irrelevant and only control matters. So, the controller can focus on only control. In the other case the other extreme case which is the case of a pure communication problem in that case we what will happen this control is control has no importance has no relevance and only communication matters. So, thanks to this what we see is that actually Wittson-hausen problem lies somewhere in between these two the these two extremes the one extreme in which communication is irrelevant and only control matters which is the classical information pattern which is where MDP is reside OOMDP is reside and so on. So, this is let us say P also the domain of POMDP is MDP is and so on. The other extreme is a pure communication problem where control has no relevance and only in the issue the issue at hand is only communication. Now, I have not yet defined for you what a communication problem really is but I will I will come to that in the following lectures. But nonetheless remember that in spirit at least this is what is this is what this is where the Wittson-hausen problem finds itself that it finds itself somewhere tied somewhere between these two extreme cases and what is fascinating is not only is it some is the Wittson-hausen somewhere between these two extreme cases what is also fascinating is that these two extreme cases are actually well studied problems. The classical information structure is really what we have studied already as Markov decision processes are partially observed Markov decision processes. The other extreme which is a which is the communication problem that is an that is also well studied and that is an instance of that then is a that is a that is and that is a subject of communication theory. So, what Wittson-hausen problem finds itself in between is is sort of in a regime where there is no really no good theory it finds itself in a regime where which is somewhere in between a communication between communication theory which is developed solely for the purpose of communication and and Markov decision theory which is which is developed assuming a perfect information structure we are assuming a classical information structure. So, this is where the Wittson-hausen problem finds itself. Now for the remaining part of the course what we will see is we will look at since we have already looked at the classical information pattern in depth for the remaining part of the course we will focus on this this aspect which is the communication aspect and we will see what what how exactly is a communication problem can how can that be thought of as an extreme case of the Wittson-hausen problem.


Directing Vermonters to stay home as much as possible and businesses to operate remotely or to close with some exceptions. In order to provide for basic needs we know there are some things many things that need to be done away from home and we're working to provide the clearest guidance we can to help people understand what this order means to them or their businesses. So here's the bottom line. We've got to slow the spread of this virus by staying home and away from others as much as possible. This will help protect those at risk of serious illness and in too many cases, even death. It's also important to prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed, which keeps all Vermonters safe. Yesterday the Center for Disease Control issued new guidance asking those in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential travel for the next 14 days. In light of this, in my continued concern for the public health and safety of all those in Vermont, I've signed a new order today directing anyone who enters Vermont to self-quarantine for 14 days once they're here. And that means heading directly to where you're going with no stops in between. While it would be best for our friends and family from other states to follow the CDC guidance and stay where they are, I also understand some who have a home or family in Vermont may need to return. And it's not just our border states. This means those who have wintered across the country. We need everyone entering Vermont to be a good neighbor and abide by the self-isolation directive. And then to follow afterwards, my stay home stay safe order to be clear. This 14 day quarantine does not apply for those just going to the grocery store or an essential job across the border. To further support my stay home order and this travel guidance. We've also included clarifying language for the lodging industry. My order last week suspended lodging operations, except for specific needs to support our COVID 19 response. To provide more certainty on what this means. Today's order makes clear it applies to hotels, motels, bed and breakfast, short term rentals, meaning those booked through Airbnb and others and all campgrounds in RV parks. We're seeing some online booking and advertising is still occurring. This is a violation of the stay home order and to make that crystal clear, today's new restrictions suspend online reservations. I've also asked law enforcement and the Attorney General to help with these measures with a goal of full compliance through monitoring and education, but with the possibility of additional steps if necessary. Mr. Shirling and Attorney General Donovan will provide more details shortly and I want to thank them for their partnership. Here's what I want everyone to understand. If you don't need to come to Vermont, please don't. This is about public health and safety, which is our top priority. But having said that, we can't let this become an us versus them view with the world. That's not who we are as Americans and certainly not as for monitors and we shouldn't let anything change that. Our message is this. If you're entering the state, you're directed to isolate in order to protect those already here as well as the capacity of our health care system. This will help protect those currently in the state while allowing people who own a home or have a family to be here as well. We've got to remember as Americans, we're all in this together and we all have a role to play in keeping each other safe. So I'm asking everyone to join us in this effort to be united and to stay Vermont strong. I'll now turn it over to Commissioner Sherling for a brief update on the work of the Vermont State Police to assess lodging compliance over the weekend. Mr. Shirley. Good morning. Uh, over the weekend, uh, we directed law enforcement in Vermont to monitor compliance in particular with lodging properties here in Vermont. 318 properties are are known to exist in Vermont exclusive of the, uh, the Airbnb type properties of that. This is a running spreadsheet of those checks. Vermont State Police and local law enforcement were able to successfully check on all of those properties of them. 88 were open. Half of those 88 were in compliance. In other words, they were, uh, housing folks that were, um, involved in the response, visiting nurses, um, healthcare professionals, military folks, uh, flight crews that are flying in and out of Burlington International Airport and the like. Uh, 44 appear to be non-compliant for those non-compliant properties. Yesterday they received a letter, uh, from the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety indicating that they need to bring their operations into compliance. Uh, and the Attorney General's office will be following up with that cross-section of apparent non-compliant properties today. Uh, after that, there will be regular, regular monitoring by law enforcement. Folks can expect to see, uh, troopers in law enforcement, uh, in the parking lots, checking in with staff there to ensure compliance. Again, this relates exclusively, uh, to the health, uh, of Vermonters and, uh, the capacity of our healthcare system. Um, to emphasize, we really expect voluntary compliance with the stepped up effort, uh, to do these cross checks, the letter, and subsequent phone calls by the Attorney General's office. Uh, we have every belief that these properties will, uh, become compliant and, uh, that we'll be able to, uh, to maintain health and safety as a result. Thank you. Good morning. I've always believed that the best way to enforce the law is to give people the opportunity to comply with it. And I want to thank the governor, uh, for his leadership during this crisis and his philosophy, uh, of that enforcement principle, that we work with Vermonters who need our help and we ask Vermonters to comply with the governor's executive order because we all have a role to play in this crisis. As Commissioner Shirling said, the Attorney General's office is reaching out to those 40 or so hotels and lodging establishments this morning. We're asking them to comply with the governor's order. We will work with you if you have questions. I do want to say that the governor's executive order does carry penalties. There are civil penalties that range from $1,000 to up to $10,000 per violation. There is also a criminal penalty that carries a $500 fine and a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment. I want to be very clear. The last thing any of us want to do is enforce these orders and seek those penalties. We're asking for your compliance. We're asking for your cooperation. That being said, we also know that we all have a role to play during this crisis. We're prepared to do our job. The Attorney General's office is prepared to do its job. We'll be reaching out to you today. If you have questions, talk with us. We will work with you and we are prepared to partner with the Mont State Police, the Department of Public Safety, and Governor Scott to do what's best for our State of Vermont. Thank you. Would that turn it over to Commissioner Levine? Thank you. This morning, I'd like to briefly put the executive orders in a public health context. Repeat some of what I've said previously about testing. Provide a bit of a situational report and wrap up with the website. If we're to succeed in flattening the curve and preserving the capacity of our healthcare system, it is essential for the health and safety of all Vermonters that everyone strictly comply with Governor Scott's executive orders. We can do it if everyone pulls together in the same direction. Social distancing, as I've said before, is not our natural state and it's difficult and challenging for everyone. I've done a lot of observation over the past weekend and was overall pretty pleased with what I saw, with some conscious distancing for people that I encountered. I've also been getting lots of emails and cards and letters though about Vermonters who are concerned about a hopefully minority of the state that doesn't take this as seriously and doesn't understand the importance of this as a true intervention strategy to really improve our performance against this virus. I just want you to listen to the comments I make later on regarding what's going on in Vermont now to put my concern into context and to really have everyone take this as seriously as possible. Now regarding the most recent executive order, because there are now so many hot spots around the country, asking Vermonters who are returning from other states to self isolate upon their return home and preventing travelers from other states from residing in lodging sites for prolonged periods is no different than policies that you may recall are just a few weeks old around the country that did the same for travelers coming back from China and Italy and other such places. This is just plain sound public health practice and it will protect us all. Regarding testing, this weekend in collaboration with the National Guard civil support team an additional COVID-19 patient test site at Landmark College in Putney was successfully stood up. This site will provide additional capacity for testing for people who have a referral from their healthcare provider. As I've said before, early and broad testing is a proven strategy to limit the spread of this virus. Vermont is still early enough on the curve of positive cases that we hope that increased testing can have a large impact on our ability to flatten the curve. I want to stress again though that you can't just show up and be tested. Mainly because if you do not have symptoms the virus might not be detected and you might actually be falsely reassured that you don't harbor the virus. And secondly because we continue to rely on your own physician's judgment about your illness and then we try to identify, counsel and isolate those who test positive, conduct contact tracing and quarantine as clinically appropriate. We're all counting on each other to do everything we can to meet this public health crisis head on. Now as our testing capacity increases you can expect to see an increase in the number of positive tests. This will reflect more tests and not necessarily more transmission of disease. We'll need to look closely at the proportion of tests that are positive and trends in our data, not just the absolute number of tests. In terms of what our status was as of last night with COVID-19 in the state there were 21 new cases yesterday, 256 total cases at this point in time, still 12 deaths, seven of them from the outbreak at Burlington Health and Rehab, five from patients that were hospitalized at various locations in the state. We continue to follow the outbreak at Burlington Health and Rehab quite closely. We are now also following another outbreak that you may have seen on the news just today at a facility in Essex Junction. This is a senior living facility. This facility is not a long-term care facility, not a nursing home. It is not a healthcare facility. It is essentially a building with over 50 apartments in it where people are independently living with the only criteria for being housed there is your age is 55 or greater. So needless to say there are some people that are in the greater category and some are more frail and may have chronic illnesses as you would expect. There are now two deaths associated with that facility, one not a person that was living there but that was a significant other of an employee there and the second occurring over the weekend someone who was actually living there. The health department has been very involved over the last five to six days with its basic work that it does in all of these outbreak situations which is making sure they're aware of all people who are in contact with that initial case that brought the disease in and making sure that we've done all the appropriate follow-up on them, made sure that they all are connected with their healthcare providers if they become symptomatic and make sure they are all isolating as is appropriate. This is ongoing and obviously it's more breaking news so I won't have a lot more details to provide you with there but we've been in constant contact and help the facility with its own communications to the residents there. In closing I want everyone to please stay safe, stay home and keep informed. Based on the number of hits I guess is the word to the healthcare website many of you are using that for information healthfermont.gov. It continues to have the latest information and answers to your questions. Last week we added an automated web bot to the page. With this tool you can type in a question and the bot will search a knowledge base that is updated daily from our extensive FAQs, frequently asked questions. We can use the questions people input to keep expanding our FAQs in a collapsible section called ask a question about COVID-19. Thank you. Well thank you very much. I just want to remind everyone we have Secretary Smith, the Agency of Human Services on the phone who will be answering questions any questions that might arise in his area of expertise and we have a lot of questions a lot of reporters media on the phone as well so we're going to do our best to get through those questions and if you can be prepared with a star six unmute yourself that would be very helpful. All right we're going to start with Lisa Lumis at the Valley Reporter, star six to unmute. Lisa Lumis, all right we're going to move to Joe Gresser at the Barton Chronicle. Star six to unmute Joe. Hi Joe. I'll let Dr. Levine answer that. Thanks. If we use Wuhan China as our guide and that was the most rigid of social distancing and mitigation strategies as you know there was about a 14-day period that elapsed for that so most people think it's in the several week range. I might add though that as we so and it's not really in the testing itself the testing helps provide greater precision to all of our modeling and all projections. The fact that we are now in the 200s range of cases is helping refine that modeling significantly but obviously we'll be watching very very closely over time and testing isn't the only outcome obviously to see if we've reached a plateau and cases we'll obviously be looking at other medical factors in the population in terms of you know illness and hospitalizations and things of that all right Sean Cunningham the Chester Telegraph. Thank you. I've just got a quick question about the difference in totals between the math and the graph the department website today. There's a difference between the math and the graph and I wondered if those totals represent the number of residents of other states. Dr. Levine. I'm going to have to check that out because I don't have it in front of me but it is true that we've had a number of positive tests of people who live in other states predominantly New Hampshire but other states as well that might explain that and we've had some Vermonters whose positive tests occurred in another state. So I'll get back with a more precise answer but I suspect it's one of those too. The county courier. Star states to unmute Greg county courier. Go ahead Greg. Greg you may need to unmute your phone or we're going to move to the next caller. All right moving to Andrew at the Caledonia. Go ahead Greg. Okay thank you governor. It's my understanding that's be located. Yeah thank you Greg. We are currently searching for trucks to just be prepared. We hope it doesn't come to that but considering the the number of people who are the morticians in the in the Vermont we have to be prepared for most anything and we'll be strategically placing those around the state if it becomes necessary but we want to make sure again that we're prepared for the worst. Thank you governor. Andrew, Caledonia record. Talk about more precise modeling as the numbers increase. The movement changed over the last several days and how is the state's efforts to increase the possible capacity of the PPE incentives things like that matching up with these new models. Yeah we're refining our modeling as we speak. We're hoping to make it more public as the week progresses because I think it it does highlight some of the challenges we face and why we're doing taking some of the steps that we're taking today. So at this point in time we uh I might ask Mr. Shirling to talk a little bit about our preparedness in terms of PPE and ventilators and so forth but we're trying to stay on top of that but we're watching the modeling as well and that's why again if we take the steps we're advocating for today and last week we hope to stay underneath the line the line of the capacity of the healthcare system and that's that's our goal. Mr. Shirling. Thank you governor. I think the governor covered the modeling component uh relative to PPE and ventilator and surge capacity there are teams continuing to work on those things. We have literally millions of uh of items on order in the PPE supply chains. We're working closely with the hospitals uh and the federal government to try to ensure that we get as many of those units as possible. The update on ventilators is we have over 400 that have been ordered and we're working daily to get delivery dates for those. There are parallel efforts also including efforts to explore whether Vermont manufacturers can produce certain types of PPE and there's a parallel effort actually to develop a ventilator that could be constructed here as quickly as possible and additional efforts to to ensure that if possible we can use a ventilator for more than one patient and important to note that we're working in support of the healthcare professionals the Department of Health and the hospitals on those efforts in particular. I might add and uh Commissioner Shirling unless I misstate this we did we did receive some uh some support from the federal government over the last couple of days a number of trucks have been brought in with some of the PPEs that equipment that we need. So that's uh that's good news but it doesn't mean that we relax in in some respects we we're pulling every lever we can using some of in-house and in searching throughout the country to be sure that we have all the available equipment that we need to fight this. It's a great point Governor. Six trucks arrived to the state's warehouse over the weekend. We anticipate additional trucks will be inbound. The state's storage warehouse for PPE actually can't handle the amount that it's storing at the moment which is partially a good sign so there's an additional warehouse space that the guard is assisting to set up and guard teams are now taking over some of the logistics and support of the Department of Health and the Department of Public Safety because of the volume that we anticipate needing to move. All right we're going to move to Chris Roy at the Newport Daily Express Star 6 to Unmute. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, how is it felt like to leave? Admittedly Chris that's very difficult as you can well imagine someone coming in driving back home after wintering in let's say Florida coming back home and then we can only educate and advocate for them to do the right thing to protect their neighbors to protect their friends to protect their family members. This is the right thing to do. It's literally in your hands to do your part and we're asking that's why we're having all the message boards along the interstates in the airports and so forth to make sure the message gets across. If you're coming into the state make sure you you self-isolate for 14 days and again we are not going to be able to enforce our way through this but we can ask for monitors to do the right thing. Anything else Chris? Okay. Anne Galloway, B.T. Digger, Star 6 to Unmute. Anne Galloway, Star 6 to Unmute. Go ahead Anne. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you very much. Governor, when will hospitalization rates per day be released? The number of people in the hospitals at this point in time with the COVID-19. Yeah. It's a good question. I did talk about that over the weekend. I'm going to turn this over to Secretary Smith who probably has the answer. Sure Anne. Thank you very much. I did get that answer for you as I had said over the weekend. Right now in all our hospitals we have 19 COVID-19 inpatient. That's 19. There's one in Central Vermont. There's one in Mountain Cuttsies. There is two in Northwestern. There is zero in Ruffin Regional right now. There's Southwestern Vermont Regional. There's two UVM at 13 and quarter medical at zero. And here's how we're going to start doing that. Each night at eight o'clock the hospital will report the COVID-19 inpatient numbers. I will have those numbers each day for us to report going forward here. So we'll have those numbers each day now. Anything else Anne? No. Thank you. All right. Tim McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine. Good morning Governor. The state of Vermont is the largest employer in the state and of course the budget is getting hit pretty hard here.  Has there any been layoffs or furloughs or what do you plan? Maybe they've been redeployed in some way. What is what is your plan for state workforce? Yeah we're redeploying as many as we can. For instance using some of the DMV employees to help with the Labor Department surge that we've seen in other areas of government as well. Obviously this is going to work trying to focus on the crisis itself today but our budget is going to be problematic obviously. So we are going to work alongside the the legislature, alongside our congressional delegation to provide for whatever relief we can knowing we have to provide essential services to Vermont but but we have to be realistic as well. So we'll work through again get through the next three to four weeks but ongoing. We're trying to dissect the federal bill to see what this means to Vermont and Vermonters and as well as our state budget and then and monitor what else is needed. The congressional delegation has been having ongoing support for us. I speak to Congressman Welch and probably Senator Leahy almost daily and they are they want to be a willing partner so as we move forward again we'll see where the challenges are and see what we can do to to mitigate that. Perfect so probably a question for commissioner we're being so regarding that facility in Essex how many people have tested positive for COVID-19? How many people are being monitored and is there a plan in place for widespread testing in the facility? So number one I'm aware of one that is tested positive we're currently aware of and have been in communication with 10 who we believe had the intense exposure and we're going to continue to abide by what I mentioned in my opening comments that testing is not treatment and testing will occur for those who become symptomatic in consultation with their health care providers. Everyone who has been identified as a significant contact is by definition doing what they would do if they were a positive test which is self-isolating assuming they were not so ill they had to be in a hospital and that is the basic rule of how public health works in this kind of a situation. So testing you know in a broader sense is really not indicated. Other places where you have health care workers in contact with people not just an independent living situation that becomes a bit of a different equation but in this situation that's really what's happened so there's no plan for wide-scale testing of every individual living in the building. And then I guess just to follow up so because it's an independent living as opposed to like insisted living so I guess is there any different guidance or support that's being offered to the residents there? Probably it's the same guidance no matter which setting to be honest because even if you're not a close contact you live in another apartment you're supposed to be abiding by all of the rules that came down in the executive order in terms of social distancing in terms of staying at home staying safe so that would be the advice that everyone would have anyways. The major issue in buildings like this as opposed to living in your own home are that there are now congregate settings in those buildings so there's a room where everybody goes for laundry there's a room where everybody goes to get their mail. There are card playing rooms and things of that sort for social activities so we have to be very direct about advising people to not be congregating in those particular parts of the building. Does that answer your question? I think what was also interesting in terms of what Dr. Levine had described to me earlier was that if you're not symptomatic and you're aced symptomatic the tests aren't as accurate and so you might get a false sense of security if you have the tests early and think you don't have it when you might so you have to just assume that you may have it to self-isolate and monitor your own symptoms take your temperature make sure you're taking care of yourself by staying away from others I mean it's very clear it's not any different than it's just a home and so stay away from others and make sure that you're taking care of yourself just like if you're traveling from a hot spot at your remote right oh yeah right I mean it's the same principle as if you're traveling from a hot spot outside the borders of Vermont into Vermont again we want you to make the assumption you may be harboring the virus and not symptomatic yet all right Mike Donahue, Vermont Press Association star six to unmute Mike we've got you hello okay thanks governor I have a two-part question dealing with the access to COVID-19 cases and full transparency as we've seen uh in Grand Isle and Epic County they continue to have no reported cases of course they have no hospitals either what I'm wondering in Grand Isle County we continue to hear reports of a few individuals with positive cases including at least one whose name was out on social media being in a St. August hospital so is it that the Grand Isle cases if there are any are actually being counted in other counties like this in Franklin County and presumably the same in Essex County that they're going to hospitals either in St. John'sbury or in Leicester yeah the second part about access information is I've been told by employees at two different hospitals that they are not told where the COVID-19 patients are on certain floors and this causes concerns by employees not to have full disclosure that they're working on floors is there anything the state but health department can do to encourage full transparency to the staff that are working at these hospitals I'm going to ask Secretary Smith if he has the answers to either one of those questions or both and then Dr. Levine to follow up yeah I don't like but let me my Donnie because it's Mike Smith I don't but let me check on those to get see if I can get some answers for you on that the first part of your question the second part of your question the medical question and I'll leave it to Dr. Levine thank you on the first question I would definitely hope that if there was a case in Grand Isle it would be listed as Grand Isle County because it would have to do with the place of residence not the place where the test was done because we definitely want that data as does everyone else so I would hope that is not the case with regard to the second you're actually speaking to basic infection control practices at various hospitals and I'm quite comfortable that our hospitals understand infection control practices have specific personnel in place that are that have expertise in that area and that they would be abiding by that so I would hate to think that there would be an employee that feels they're at risk because that fact and that knowledge is not known if you could provide us just to be clear there are other people in other departments that may not be dealing with a COVID-19 case that are on the same floor but haven't been told that the COVID-19 so yeah so you know I guess I'd need to hear more specific cases because clearly anybody who is either known COVID-19 or a person under investigation awaiting a test result is under a very strict isolation procedure so that those going in and out of the room specifically would be aware of what they need to be dawning in terms of the appropriate protective equipment every time that happened and they wouldn't just casually be going in the room to say clean the floor or get a a tray off the patient's tray table there would be knowledge of that so again I would need specifics but I I can't believe that the basic infection control practices and practices that are frankly protective for the employees wouldn't be happening there okay thank you and Mike that deal for the commissioner will check on the I think there's 126 cases presumably between like Franklin and Chittenden to see if any of those have residents County yeah Mike one of us will check but the doctoral dean is right what we see every day is the county of residence for those people but let us check to make sure Mike thank you steward governor your state state border expires in two weeks you know last night the president extended the national directive to all of April is there any doubt in your mind that you will have to extend the state state order through at least April and secondly what is your projection for when Vermont might peak yeah two parts to that question first of all I think everyone should expect that this will be extended April 15th and beyond just trying to determine how long that's going to be and what provisions will be in place as we do that and as we amend as we move forward in terms of how long that's a good question and I think it's up to all of us to make sure that we implement all the measures that we put into place in the executive order and all the amendments since the sooner we do that the sooner we'll get through this and we'll we'll continue to monitor and we'll again be sharing some of the modeling with you with with with vermoners over the next over the next few days because I think it really is important for you to understand the magnitude if we don't get this right what it could mean and how quickly it could overwhelm our health care system and that's what we want to prevent you know we need to make sure that we're increasing the capacity lift that line of the capacity of our health care system making sure that we have surge capacity there making sure we have all the equipment we need to to fight this but at the same time it's literally in our hands if we if we take this seriously we stay away from each other we self isolate and and this this will go a lot better than the alternative so it's really important that you pay attention tanya the islander star six to unmute tanya all right pat bradley wamc bradley wamc all right cliff cooper hi can you hear me okay go ahead pat hi how are you um you have mentioned earlier that um mandate that your order requires residents and non-residents coming from outside the state to self quarantine for 14 days is targeted for people coming in from hot spots um and that it doesn't necessarily impact people who are coming over who are working between northern new york and northern vermont can you clarify the types of businesses that that impact and secondarily have you consulted with the neighboring governors like governor quomo about this addendum and its potential uh impact um two two things i can give an example let's say someone who's living over in in platzberg uh is working at uvm medical center uh they're part of the covet 19 response so we understand they'll be going back and forth uh so that would be allowed uh if for instance uh someone uh is in the uh is dealing with national security uh working for border patrol or something of that nature uh that would be exempted as well um i have uh spoken to a number of governors uh have not spoken to governor uh quomo but our other neighbors uh governor sununu governor baker in particular uh i speak to on a regular basis um so we're all trying to deal with this uh understanding that we're we're individual states and have individual needs um but uh but there clearly uh should be some more coordination throughout the nation uh in some respects because we do this patchwork uh and and and i believe in states rights and i believe that we should be doing everything we can uh again individually to protect our our citizens protect our our vermonters in this case but uh but when we have a difference in uh what we're we're implementing it does have an effect on other states uh for instance if someone was in vermont uh a company in vermont that was closed down we closed them down uh to to prevent the spread here in vermont but they can work over in new york uh and then they start commuting back and forth uh that's problematic uh and so my uh my guidance is for any one or any company uh going to another state to work for something that's not essential uh that they stay there and uh if they're going to work there stay there and uh and if you come back isolate for 14 days once you return and is this order going to pretty much mirror your stay at home order the length of time if you you know extend the stay at home order this will also be extended along with it it's tough to say at this point pat uh you know we're some of the considerations that's why I haven't extended it at this point although you can expect that the order will be extended but we'll determine at that point what what we need to include what we don't um if there's any you know we can only hope that we we peak before them but our modeling doesn't show that to be honest and um so i i expect it'll be extended uh but for how long i'm not sure at this point thank you sir all right clif cooper north avenue news clif star six on you yeah this is clif cooper from the north avenue this paper i've just got a question about the u.s mail and um the carriers don't have gloves masks need to do the tellers um what what i can you know i'm going to let dr levine answer part of this but i see a number of people wearing gloves for instance that doesn't necessarily provide relief and and it doesn't insulate you from either transmitting this to others or transmitting it to yourself because the glove itself could be contaminated with the virus and then you could touch your face with the glove so that's the point is not to touch your face uh to remind remain at a safe distance from others um you know masks and shields i've seen where convenience stores and other entities in vermont that remain open have put shields in themselves make shift shift lexan type shields that will do the job and i think that that's what they should do and i believe the post offices should do that as well and for those who are delivering mail they should they should take that precaution on their own to make sure they're protecting themselves and others during this crisis wilson ring eight courtney lambden seven days oh wait somebody's on there now is that you wilson yes it is sorry i had to do the star six three times to get through i had two questions here one about the the hotels that you found and other lodging facilities that were not in compliance with 40 something how responsive were they presumably you pointed out that they were not in compliance and how responsive were they to that and just to to that being pointed out to them and then secondly um is there any estimate yet on when vermont expects to see a piece let commissure shirling answer the first part in terms of responsivity the initial contact on saturday was just reconnaissance to see what levels of compliance yesterday they were delivered letters as i indicated and then there'll be follow-up calls that begin today so i don't think we have a full gauge of the responsivity at this point but we expect that folks will largely be compliant with the 44 properties that again to be clear appeared to be out of compliance this was not an in-depth detailed investigation okay thank you um in terms of the second part of your question wilson i don't want to get ahead of the what we're doing with the modeling trying to refine that but but suffice it to say it's sometime we feel sometime in april but we'll be sharing that as the days go on here this week thank you all right just we have still have several collars that we're trying to get through so just a reminder for everybody for for clarity we will be having a separate briefing on the modeling and projections this week so there will be more details in a in a briefing scheduled specifically for that later this week we're going to go in in the room to fox 44 um just wondering if you have any information or know anything about a staff member at pinecrest senior living in s6 junction who has COVID-19 and went to work still you're making it sound like currently as opposed to previously yeah so we believe previously there was a staff member who was unaware of their status who may have been infectious for a couple of days uh we're not aware of anyone currently for you might probably but uh i received several calls over the weekend uh from people in the valley who are in that uh danger zone as far as medical and uh and age um and they were concerned about the b and b still operating and they've seen them constantly running back and forth and they they were worried that uh they either a weren't part of it and governor you already gave us the answer to that but is there any anything in the works to to hit the air b and bs at all yeah again uh we're doing the same thing uh this approach uh pertains to them we saw the same thing we heard from the same people uh and we're trying to make sure that they comply uh mr shirling anything to add on that sure uh with the additional clarity that was issued uh today we fully expect air b operators if you know them if you're listening you need to shut down your operations we will begin monitoring for online postings uh this week and we'll make banking referrals for contact the attorney general's office thereafter and just to add to that uh we we are part of the order is to to close the online reservation uh portion so i know that uh i think uh commissioner shirling you told me earlier that uh on the on the page the air b and b page that there is a already a notice that's going up uh at this point in time there is uh we expect that there'll be additional clarity after today some you know you know let's let's be honest some didn't uh know or uh didn't know that they it pertain to them uh that's why part of the education a part of what we did uh to try and get the word out and that's why it's important that we do and we hope all of you will carry that as well Courtney Landon seven days hi governor um this actually this question might actually be for commission commissioner shirling i'm wondering if someone could detail what kind of supplies vermont has requested from the federal government and how much of that uh equipment we have received versus how much we're still waiting on thank you just to be clear we're not waiting on anything from the federal government in some respects we're going and we're pulling every lever we possibly can and finding a lot on our own we should be able to share some of that information with you again this week we we hope but uh i'll let commissioner shirling answer the rest of that we have standing requests for millions of personal protective items from the federal government uh over i think our request is for 600 ventilators and we've received a cross-section of n95 mass surgical mass gowns and face shields hundreds of thousands of those items have come into the warehouse i don't have the exact counts in front of me uh the again as the governor indicated that is one avenue of exploration to bolster these supplies it is not by any means the exclusive avenue also thank you very much ethan burlington free press ethan burlington free press star sticks hi thank you um so i was just wondering uh is there any indication so far at least that the new expanded testing policy is working and uh in addition is our congressional delegation helping to secure more test kits um i'm going to let uh commissioner levine answer the the testing portion but i just would add uh that it's not instantaneous it takes a bit of time in terms of extraction uh then turning it over to the lab and depending on whether it's done in in-house in the state lab versus us sending it to an outside lab let's say mail clinic it takes a little bit more time for us to get it to them and to return but uh but i would also add in the terms of in terms of mail uh we are not waiting we're not shipping it by uh by ups or fedex or us mail uh we're flying it there and we're doing this uh twice a day uh starting today i believe tomorrow morning uh so uh we're uh we're being aggressive with this uh we want to get the results back just as quick as we possibly can and our testing in-house uh we can we can have results within 24 hours but again we're not going to see this for a day or two but the putney uh testing uh i've uh i've heard back uh that it was a successful start yesterday and continues to be today dr labine not a lot not a lot to add to that but um any strategy that you begin in terms of combating COVID-19 you have to maintain at least 10 14 or longer day period of time to see the impact uh so certainly will not be instantaneous especially if you understand that the incubation period of the virus can be as few as two days or as long as 14 days michelle minnow st albin's messenger star six to unmute michelle minnow hello hello can you hear me now great i was just wondering what steps are being taken to protect the um prison population and the staff who work in the prison i'm going to uh refer to secretary smith on that if you're still on the line i sure am governor michelle like i said the other day there's been an extensive uh sort of precautions that i've never seen before in the prison population in terms of what we're doing first of all we have suspended all in-person visitation rights for the prison population we have done that now and substituted video conferencing for the evade for for visitation rights secondly uh we have uh we we have established uh sort of spacing and as you know right now our prison population is at some of the lowest that it's been in quite a while we're just under 1500 i think a year ago we were at 1600 so that allows us to get some spacing we are monitoring employees coming in in terms of temperature check as we move forward and we have onsite supplies for testing for inmates and right now we have no positive tests that have occurred in the inmate population we've also ramped up our supplies to make sure that we don't run out of supplies in the uh in the prison population so we we're in in our wrecking facility and we'll continue to be aggressive as we move forward okay thank you uh i had a question that you can hear me okay great uh this is uh about infrastructure after i read um i'm sure you'll recall that we refilled um culverts and bridges and everything to the stands of future right now our infrastructure for the internet is is inadequate for many people working at home or trying to learn at home i wonder if there's any effort underway to maybe use the bully pulpit to talk to consolidated to and other internet providers to beef up servers in some cases i understand it's just a matter of installing a new switch um in neighborhoods so uh this is a need i've heard from people pretty much all over the state um and i'm wondering if there's any effort in that regard uh thank you john uh as you can as you may recall after Irene there were less a lot of lessons learned and we uh and we did things better after that we built bridges differently uh we uh we dealt with obstructions differently we did we did many things uh in a in a different manner we'll do the same thing in the aftermath of this crisis as well and i think uh the um accessibility to broadband is one area that is uh certainly something we knew about before but it's going to take resources in order to do that but if there's anything we can do easily obviously we'll do them but this is another area i've talked with the congressional delegation already about uh you know in the recovery we're still dealing with a crisis today but in the recovery uh this might be an area that we could all use and help across the united states in terms of making sure that we have accessible broadband so that when we go to online learning and in other areas where we're we're isolating ourselves that we have the capacity to do this but i but i will say i mean we're we're learning as we go uh and uh and i i take my hat off to all vermonters for finding their way through this i mean i mean even in our own office even myself uh where we're doing a lot of video conferencing a lot of calls like we're doing today i think the silver lining again i was remarking after a press conference on friday the silver lining to this is so many people are calling in and we're hearing from all parts of the state we're typically in a press conference we have at the state house uh there's just a handful of local reporters there uh but now we're we're getting from all different regions and their ability to ask questions and and be able to communicate uh is something that i think is really important so uh in the aftermath of this we'll learn from the best practices and be able to do better any immediate efforts to talk to the providers i think i would say our public service department um commissioner tyranny is uh is constantly uh asking them to expand and we're providing whatever help we can guidance uh to to do so so yes i would say it's an ongoing effort to make sure that we're we're dealing with a crisis at hand right now and part of that is making sure that there's capacity so anything we can do we're doing if you if there's anything that you think we should be doing please offer that up and let us know uh so that we can we can make sure that we go uh to them if we haven't seen it highlighted already all right i'll set john okay uh patricia labouf at bennington banner patricia at bennington banner all right norah at the valley news hi patricia yes okay go ahead sorry star six have given me some trouble um so i i was just noticed actually just earlier today testing seems to be a large part of mitigating the spread of the virus and preventing deaths i know they mentioned specifically germany and i believe south korea have extended some sort of testing and it has been reported the us lies behind other countries in testing i saw a new test was just granted emergency use author authorization by the sda and is expected to roll out this week it provides results in approximately 15 minutes and it said that of that particular test can the company that makes that particular test can do about 50 000 per day and i'm wondering if roman is aware of this possible new test and if so if you guys are seeking to use any capacity yeah i've seen that on the national news as well and suffice it to say if it's available to us and we would we'd be utilizing it but at this point in time i don't believe that we have seen that and the availability is not has not been known to me um commissioner levy and it all depends on which kind of test you're talking about there's the test that's actually looking for the active virus in a secretion and then there's the test that's looking at your blood to see if you have an antibody response to the virus so i'm not sure if you're aware of which one you're you're talking about but um i know the maker is um the maker is called abit the maker of the test and sure it would be results in uh 15 minutes so it's very very very rapid test and i believe that says all that i but it's like a it's like a swap test my understanding is the patients could actually swap themselves right so you know things are happening in a very rapid timeline with uh emergency use authorizations and the fda so obviously if this becomes a prime time thing that's accessible to us and can help in our efforts we'll certainly pursue that avenue right now we literally have a bunch of irons in the fire for a variety of test regimens some of which will give us even greater improved over the 24 hour turnaround even if it's not in 15 minutes and those are going to be standing up in the very near future so we're using everything that we know that's existing and what you're describing is evolving and emerging and so we'll have to evaluate it and see if it's accessible and it's worth pursuing thanks noro valley news noro valley news keys digger nor are you on we're going to move on to allen keys at digger go ahead can you hear me weekend okay yes hi this is nora um so yes i was wondering um is there i guess to your temporary housing for health care workers who may you know want to live separately from their families during this time i believe there are accommodations uh being uh contemplating at this very moment but uh i don't have the specifics on that uh secretary smith thank you very much nor there there are a lot of things we will handle in the state of vermont there we're looking at hospitals for them to determine the maximum capacity for things such things as that bedside view vent PPE uh within sort of their hospital uh health service area and this might include that they have to do additional beds within the hospital facility as well to establish a local service at the same time the state is looking at using their modeling that we've been talking about medical search for beds ips and vents and that's about if it if the response goes above the hospital sort of maximum capacity and we you know think we'll be working with our hospital state establishes you know targeted alternative care sites you've seen some of those for example and then you're talking about this uh special population search the thing that um well there's there's this category the special population search and those are areas a wide array of areas like mental health and social service and long-term care and homeless and uh prisoner population that may need special needs consideration for COVID-19 and then there's isolation sites for people like uh plus uh COVID-19 exposed healthcare workers who do not want to return home as close as spread there is these various steps are ongoing right now in order to address any potential increase or surge that may happen as the governor said in the month of April uh with this particular virus just a quick follow-up yes sorry um and so how does that work is that led by the hospitals or by the state you know is it a local sort of discussion or is it a statewide in terms of special population surge we're doing that right now at the base level in terms of finding maximum levels over the the hospitals are responsible for the initial surge and and their hospital service area if it goes beyond that hospital surge area then the state would would bring its resources in what i would call a state medical maximum helping the surge there with the special population what i was talking about social services the state is handling that right now looking at various sites i think i saw a news story on that this weekend and then the isolation sites would be a partnership with the state and the municipalities and community partners that are out thank you all right allen keys bt digger allen star six right that's our last question oh allen go ahead allen yeah didn't get all that can you try it again allen i had no knowledge of that at this point in time allen we'll we'll look into that but i i'm not aware yeah yeah we'll we'll look into it and get back to you all right again i want to oh go ahead i'm curious if there's been any change in your assessment that 80 of the cases that are diagnosed would not become hugely serious could be handled by stay-at-home isolation any any adjustment in those percentages based on the experience that we've had not to this time again i want to thank everyone for tuning in this is extremely important and if we can just self-isolate follow some of the procedures and some of the order that we put have put into place we'll get through this quicker and i want to thank the Attorney General for participating today in his partnership in this effort as well thank you


Hey guys, it's brian again One thing we didn't touch on our last tutorial and this is just leftovers from the last one is how to change the link color If we just add a link here let's just say a a href equals Whoops, we forgot the a how embarrassing Google.com Let's say we just add this in here And a few hard returns just so we can see what's going on Refresh and when you go down, I don't know if you can see this, but there's our link and it's Pretty much the same color as our background. So how's the user going to see that? Well, there's some special body tags that we can use link equals and then we'll say green and Then there's some other ones V link which stands for visited link and then a link which stands for active link You can make these different colors, but typically I make them all the same color I'm sure you've seen like on Google where you click a link and it changes color. That's what these tags do Link is something you've never visited before V link is what you visited and active link is what you're currently visiting But for this tutorial, we're just going to keep it short simple all the same color Refresh and there's Google. Well That's kind of dark Through the magic of modern technology, I'm going to pause this video and find a better color be right back Okay, guys. I'm back. I have got the color I want now. We're gonna do something different. We're gonna add in a hex code Now what is that? No, that's not the pin number to my bank account That's called a hex code. You can tell because it's a pound sign followed by six digits. That's actually a hex number That's the color code in hexadecimal Now let's just copy and paste this if you're wondering what color that is. It's kind of a lime green. Well Let's see it actually work Here's our page. We'll refresh and voila lime green Now, how do you find these colors?  That's great But how do you know what 6 6 ff 7 7 is?  Actually, let's just do it together real quick And you can see once again, that's a visited link. You see how it's different And wow, look at these. All right, let's just click one And expand it again, and you can see here's all the codes 0 0 f f 0 0 so dead centers green if you're wondering it's an RGB system red green blue two digits to know red to just to know green two digits to know blue and You can see there's literally tons and tons of colors is actually much more than what's displayed here But this gives you an idea of the color palette you can work with I mean, there's quite literally an almost infinite amount of colors you can use and the color charts get More and more complex. Oops. They didn't like that. Let's just find something different real quick here. Yes, here's a good one so That gives you an idea of what colors are out there What hex color codes are and how to add them to your web page? Hope you found this tutorial educational and entertaining and thanks for watching