Libs hyped the vaccine for the same reason that they've falsely called every variant since BA.1 "Omicron": Avoiding COVID is bad for the economy.
A vaccine that lets you avoid infection is said to provide sterilizing immunity, and for COVID, the only vaccines so far that have the goal of providing sterilizing immunity are mucosal vaccines. Currenty, the mucosal vaccines that exist are only authorized in China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, and Russia, but there might be a rollout in the US later this year.