What would have been the alternative? Go endemic Bergamo-style? Remain in soft lockdown for a decade or two in order to go endemic at a very slow pace? At the time vaccines were widely available, chances of making the virus die out had already been at exactly zero for quite a while (well, zero, plus wherever the chances are for a sudden all life ending meteor strike). It was vaccines that allowed us come to where we are now with the amount of inconvenience we had on the way. Any path without vaccines would have been worse, one way or the other.