What we were sold, specifically? One of the challenges to the way this has been been politicized is that the original claims (high efficacy against serious cases, imprecise but substantial efficacy against spread, both of which have held up quite well) were often drowned out by people making much stronger claims for political reasons such as they didn't work at all, or that failing to instantaneously stop the pandemic even at vaccination rates far below the target threshold meant the approach had failed.