You are comparing different variants as if they are equal. That makes no sense. If you look at the data so far available it does seem to reduce incidence of infection.
we know the new variants are more contagious than what we had last year, if the vaccines didn't limit growth we should see a steeper curve, I believe.
How do you account for prior immunity as well as the "pool" of people that would show up as a case going down as well?
Both those factors would result in a softer curve without any vaccination.
UK for instance: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases