They do help. But unlike others I don't think it's the ultimate salvation. We have vaccines for quite some time but there's always some kind of excuse why things are going bad. In the end it's going to be "this happened because we didn't have 90-100% vaccinated".
My speculative view - I said months ago that I think this will be with us for a long time, that people will probably have a shot once a year, or two for people more at risk, and that there will be spikes with some restrictions for years to come. Not like we have seen in the worst lockdowns, but you can't totally ignore a breakout just because we have seen worse. Imagine a new virus emerges, we aren't going to ignore it just because Covid-19 was bad. You have treat it as such.
Yes the world was much better when things like Covid didn't exist, or seemed like something which affected a few thousand people in Asia or some jungle in Africa, but this is something you learn to live with. And by live with I don't mean choose to ignore and pretend doesn't exist. Viruses don't disappear, but to get to the point where it becomes a moderate problem or reduced to isolated breakouts there have to be some controls in place.