In 2020, Raoult was the n°1 infectologist according to the world rankings of researchers.
1) Before the omicron variant, vaccines reduced hospitalization, intensive care and covid mortality. Now, omicron mortality is so low that the potential effectiveness of vaccines against mortality is not currently measurable.
2) Mass vaccination in a country is very significantly associated with the explosion of cases a few months later.
Raoult recalls that the first studies on the effectiveness of vaccines against contamination (not the severity of the disease) systematically excluded from the analysis the period just after the first injection and just after the second, and showed significant efficacy one week later the second dose. This exclusion was justified by the assumption that the vaccine could not be effective during this period.
However, the latest studies published on the subject show that not only are vaccines not effective between the first dose and the first week after the second dose, but they also have negative efficacy, that is to say that it facilitates infection. This could explain the explosion of contaminations just after the start of massive vaccination campaigns.
The explanation for this phenomenon could be ADE, antibody dependent enhancement, a phenomenon already known for other vaccines, and for immunity in general (the dengue, for example). Vaccination causes the body to produce neutralizing antibodies, which neutralize the infection, but also facilitating antibodies, which facilitate it. It is possible that at first, just after vaccination, the facilitating antibodies dominate over the neutralizing antibodies, and that later, it is the opposite. 3 to 4 months later, the number of anti-bodies, whether facilitating or neutralizing, collapses, and the vaccine is no longer effective.
In addition (not in the Raoult’s video), the virus mutates to adapt to its environment, and vaccination is part of its environment. It can evolve so that a neutralizing antibody for an old variant can become facilitating for a new variant. This has already been observed for other vaccines. Microbes on the one hand, and immunity on the other (including vaccination) are agents in perpetual reciprocal evolution.
In summary, according to Raoult, the vaccines were effective in reducing the severity of INDIVIDUAL disease with the 2021 variants, with real-world efficacy of around 50%. On the other hand, vaccination campaigns are systematically associated with an explosion of contaminations immediately afterwards, a phenomenon which is most certainly explained by ADE.
Nationally and globally, the collective benefit or harm of the vaccine is unclear, since if a vaccinated person is individually protected against severe forms, he or she is also, for several weeks, more likely to be infected and more chance to infect others.