The news reached Sarah Gilbert on Saturday night that the COVID-19 vaccine she developed with AstraZeneca seemed to work, but the Oxford University professor hoped for a key number: Was it more than 90 percent effective, as have been others, or less?

Instead, when his colleague Andrew Pollard called with the results, he wanted to show him slides instead of simple figures . “I really didn’t understand why we had to go through slides,” he recalled. “But then it became clear: because it is much more complicated in our test.”

That complexity has led to uncertainty surrounding one of the pioneers along with Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna in the ‘race’ for a dose to end the pandemic. Questions about the most effective dose of the vaccine, its safety record, and partners’ approach to testing it have cast doubt on whether the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will endorse it.

AstraZeneca and Oxford reported the results early Monday after 131 trial participants in the UK and Brazil contracted COVID-19. The average prevention efficacy of 70 percent sounded good , within analyst expectations, and above the 50 percent standard the FDA had set for COVID vaccines.

The study also found 16 serious cases, all among people who received vaccine from AstraZeneca , according to Moncef Slaoui, the exinvestigador of GlaxoSmithKline who runs the program Operation Warp Speed US. It was good news for Astra’s vaccine program that had been on hold for six weeks in that country while regulators reviewed a serious adverse event that the company never gave details about. Oxford will report the details of these adverse events in its efficacy study which it will present for review in the coming weeks.

Shares of AstraZeneca rose as much as 2.4 percent early Tuesday morning in London after falling 3.8 percent on Monday.

The puzzling part of Astra’s results was that the larger doses were less effective. The vaccine was only 62 percent effective in a group that received two full doses about a month apart, but among about 2,700 people who received a half dose followed by a full one , the effectiveness rose to 90 percent.

Positive data from another vaccine of substantial efficacy with potential advantages in storage, transportation and affordability will be welcome , said Jesse Goodman, a former chief of the FDA’s office of vaccines who later became the agency’s chief scientist.

“What is not yet clear is whether this effect is a chance observation or reflects that the higher dose can negatively affect the immune response ,” he said in an interview. “We need more details to begin to understand it.”

Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at SVB Leerink, was among the most critical voices, calling the data “premature and insufficient” in a note to clients and predicting that the vaccine would “never be licensed in the US.”

Arm yourself with patience
AstraZeneca and Oxford are conducting trials of the vaccine in different parts of the world , and are currently only studying two full doses of the dose in their US study, which is expected to include 30,000 volunteers. But the company is still recruiting participants and could add another analysis for further studies of the half-dose regimen, explained Ruud Dobber, executive vice president and president of biopharmaceuticals at AstraZeneca.

“Let’s be a little more patient and see how the FDA reacts before making such harsh statements,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV .

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has already started its analysis based on the data it has received in ongoing review, Chief Executive June Raine said in a statement.

It may interest you: Why the AstraZeneca vaccine, which will be packaged in Mexico, may be the best option?

Low- and middle-income nations are looking to the injection, priced much lower than Pfizer and Moderna, as a way out of the pandemic. The lower efficacy number of the two full-dose regimens reached the World Health Organization benchmark, according to chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan.

Still, Swaminathan warned in an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg Television that more comprehensive data is needed to understand possible discrepancies between doses.

“We really need to wait for bigger numbers, longer follow-up, to see if these differences really continue into the future,” he said.

That a lower dose produced a better result left even Gilbert scratching his head . The researchers tested a starting half-dose regimen to find the smallest amount that could still elicit a strong immune response , Gilbert said, not to increase effectiveness.

“I was surprised,” he said in an interview. “I really didn’t expect that.”

Its superiority over two full doses could be good news, as it would allow the company to perform more inoculations with the same total volume of vaccine . That could be important with the need to vaccinate billions of people around the world.

The vaccine uses a harmless chimpanzee adenovirus , the cause of some common colds, as a vector that is then inserted with the coronavirus spike protein to elicit an immune response.

What could have caused these results?
In theory, it is possible that a full initial dose raised antibodies against the adenovirus vector itself, which could have limited the immune response to the peak protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Gilbert said, but his team measured antibodies against it. adenovirus in previous studies and found only a small effect.

“I’m not really sure if that’s the complete answer. We’ll look into it a bit more, but it may be a bit more subtle in terms of inducing a high-quality immune response by giving just the right amount of vaccine antigen in the first dose and then expanding it with the second dose, “he added.

One possible explanation for the variable results is that the lower starting dose does a better job of breaking through the body’s defenses , allowing the vaccine to infect cells and create the immune response, said Michael Kinch, an expert in drug development and Associate Vice Chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Another theoretical reason is more complex: the immune system can become immune to the initial high dose of vaccine and then ignore the subsequent dose, a phenomenon known as immune tolerance or desensitization. Either one would have the potential to mitigate the effects of the vaccine.

“The 90 percent number may ultimately prove correct,” Kinch said, “but the dose-response reversal could be a sign of concern.”

The Oxford team is still analyzing their data to better understand how the vaccine works. Gilbert noted that he is confident that the higher efficiency number will stick around as more data arrives.

“It could go up or down a bit,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to change massively, but it may differ from that initial 90 percent in either direction when we get to a little bigger analysis.”

There are many times when I speak to students or clients about establishing business relationships, especially financial ventures and I have their attention of them constantly. At one point, I want them to ask the question, “If you had your entire business going today and no-one bankruptity or losing the ability to work because of an illness, how would your business be?” asks Sofiya Machulskaya.

Sometimes they estimate that they will be unable to get paid for their life insurance, leanings or supplements and this keeps them trapped in financial traps that are not attractive to most customers. At other times, they tell me about a family member and/or friend who was fired for poor work performance and now they are also trapped as they can pay their own premium or personal event insurance with the person’s personal insurance policy. No wonder business relationships aren’t what they need to be.

I mention this question because I have seen many small business owners and executives in this position I refer to as trapped. Although I never actually asked them if this term describes them, as I believe my students and clients could look at their business like I do for them.

Typically, in an established business relationship business owner and employee have a personal relationship, one that is strictly professional, one that adds value and is relatively good at solving my problems. Initially, the person represents a huge value; they overcome all my benchmarks and specifications and meets some objective of a successful business relationship. During the time, however, I constantly have to spend more time and effort NOT to let the person slip away. There is often a great deal of frustration, anxiety and worry because it is clear that my relationship is NOT as good as it used to be.

Before anyone wants to say “That’s not the way life is”, stop and ask yourself if you have chosen a good business partner. Have you put into practice the following three simple questions that will aid you in deciding if a person has the skills to keep your business relationship in the “good driver” range.

After answering all these questions:

If you arrive at the conclusion your relationship is ONLY at the “good driver” or “great driver” stage how do you proceed to either mitigate or remove the uncertainty and begins to move towards your goal of a mutually beneficial business relationship explains Sofiya Machulskaya.

If I have chosen the best partner…is there a remote possibility that they will actually want to close a deal with me? If the answer is no, ask yourself what you can do to make this relationship mutually beneficial and take the necessary steps to reduce the anxiety and intensity of the situation.

Have I asked for a 60% reduction in my business insurance rate during the next sixty days that I will stick to? If the answer is no I must ask myself why? What needs to be done to achieve improved or at least efficient business relationship?

If any of these questions are answered with a resounding “No of course” please ask yourself another one. If you have answeredallof these questions with agreement, operate in a business partnership and stick with it! There is nothing worse than someone developing an expectation that you will NEVER budge when it seems like a relationship is going nowhere. Once the relationship is going down the road you can now move on to the other two main reasons why business partnerships don’t or don’t work out.

The first is that you have chosen a “self partner” and not a “partner owner”.

I have been most successful in business when I have found a John Assum who is willing to give 100% to the John Assum’s idea and not take anything for himself for years, years! I would have eventually developed an expectation that it will take me way too long to ever be able to do anything. It was great in the beginning because I could proudly tell the world I had created a relationship that was the envy of the industry much to my surprise I never even had to tell my family and my friends. That death-defying feeling of success has now been replaced by feelings of feelings of negligent partners, dishonest partners and picked dominoes!

I must be realistic and admit the risk is a little high having partners who are “self-extended” but in my opinion I have found if I have a John Assum or John Assum Big Fish who don’t care, who refuse to grow and change, who are out to hurt anyone, which consists of your John Assum and your John Assum Big Fish of course I must look out for myself. On the other extreme, I have found that many seemingly “self-improvement” gurus/teachers, despite the best of intentions are actually someone who is most likely a perpetually poor or a “self-improvement” guru/teacher and who operates out of spite and destruction of the self vs personal growth of the person/team.

The National Consumer Price Index (INPC) registered a variation of 3.44 percent in the first half of November compared to the same period last year, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) reported on Tuesday .

This figure represented its lowest level since the first half of June of this year , when it stood at 3.17 percent.

Thus, inflation returned to the target range set by Banco de México (3 percent, +/- one percentage point).

The underlying price index , which is the one that excludes products with high price volatility from its accounting, had an annual variation of 3.68 percent, which represented its lowest level since the first half of June, whose data was 3.66 percent.

In its interior, the prices of services were located at 2.25 percent at an annual rate, which presented its highest record since the second half of March 2016, on that occasion it was 2.18 percent.

The rise in merchandise prices was 5 percent at an annual rate, its lowest level since the second half of June, when it stood at 4.88 percent.

Meanwhile, the non-core balance , which accounts for products that present high volatility in their prices, such as agricultural products or fuels, increased to 2.67 percent.

This is its smallest rise since the first half of June, when it rose 1.63 percent.

In a disaggregated manner , the prices of agricultural products were located at 7.62 percent, while those of energy and tariffs authorized by the government presented a deflation of 0.85 percent, this compared to the same period last year.

As for the price index of the minimum consumption basket, it registered a rise of 0.11 percent every two weeks and 3.61 percent annually.

In its monthly comparison, inflation had a variation of 0.04 percent.

Electricity and professional services prices rise
The products that increased the most in price and that had a greater impact on inflation during the first half of September were electricity (22.74 percent); professional services (9.58 percent); egg (2.62 percent) and chicken (1.91 percent).

The products that presented a reduction in their costs were the tomato (13.38 percent); lemon (10.88 percent); zucchini (9.31 percent) and avocado (6.09 percent).

By state, those with the highest price increase were Sonora (3.64 percent); Sinaloa (2.91 percent); Baja California Sur (2.2 percent) and Baja California (1.83 percent).