"There were 11 COVID‑19 cases in the Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95% confidence interval of 89.3% to 96.8%)."
It's easy to create false memories because the politicians and pharma industry simultaneously swapped the narrative to stopping hospitalization and death once it became completely clear the vaccines were not stopping infection, but that is not what their initial purpose was.
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210202223626/https://www.moder...
Your summary: "They claimed vaccination would completely prevent infection."
Perhaps you just can't read?
> The median length of follow up for efficacy for participants in the study was 9 weeks post Dose 2. There were 11 COVID‑19 cases in the Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95% confidence interval of 89.3% to 96.8%).
> Cases of COVID‑19, starting 14 days after Dose 2, were defined as symptomatic COVID‑19 requiring positive RT-PCR result and at least two systemic symptoms or one respiratory symptom.
A SARS-CoV-2 infection and a COVID-19 case aren't the same thing, for the same reason a HIV infection is not the same as having AIDS. The 94.1% number comes from counts of actual sickness, despite your assertions to the contrary.
COVID was a major threat to a significant part of the population. The vaccines were effective and reduced the threat to those people enormously.
It would have been very nice and useful to stop transmission and achieve herd immunity. But even without that the vaccines were a huge win and saved a lot of lives.