Where I live, protecting the hospitals from overload was the main reason given for the lockdowns that started in March 2020. The vaccine succeeds in protecting hospitals (the rate of hospitalisation is now about one sixth of what it was at comparable infection incidence at the end of last year), so it maybe a thin reed but it's a reed that does the job.

This. I'm a doc covering our ICU and I'm seeing an endless stream of Delta COVID-19 patients which are 95% unvaccinated and younger than in 2020.

There are many socio-politico-scientific issues/stories surrounding SARS-CoV-2 but, in my opinion, the most dangerous impact of this virus is the ability it has to massively deplete medical resources in a region. In real-time, SARS-CoV-2 is saturating our beds/resources and burning-out staff. No staff have been dismissed from our healthcare system (~20 hospitals) due to unvaccinated status and nurse staffing has been critical since spring of 2020. Considerable effort is expended daily just to find staffed beds for patients within our hospital (or within our region if we are at max).

(Have been a long-time reader of HN and this is my first post. Just want to thank everyone for a great community over the years. Well done.)

OP said hospitalizations has reduced to 1/6th.

Unless you can prove to me that 5 of every 6 doctors and nurses have quite due to vaccin mandates i think we are in better shapes as before

(even ignoring that anti-vaxxers in hospitals act as superspreaders)

Covid hospitalizations were reduced to 1/6th. Are those the only kinds of hospitalizations?

No. But that's not the key question. The key question is: Did this reduction reduce the hospital requirement forecasts such that hospitals have free beds and can handle sudden and big accidents? An aircraft crash, a derailed train, a wave of food poisonings? And that is now the case, since the vaccines protect so well against severe effects.

No, but they are the only ones with high hospital demand currently being driven by an explosive contagious vector.