The trials would have had to have tested every participant daily to qualify protection against infection. However it was most certainly presumed, and the entire

The trials would have had to have tested every participant daily to qualify protection against infection. However it was most certainly presumed, and the entire narrative around the vaccine push was achieving herd immunity: when enough people were unlikely to shed viruses in any likely transmissive volume because of achieved immunity (whether via vaccine or previous infection), transmission would trickle to an almost halt and life would return to normal. This wouldn't require 100% coverage, nor a 100% effective vaccine (no vaccine has ever been 100% effective, or so-called "sterilizing") to accomplish. There is a bit of rewriting now that is happening that is a bit disturbing and seems like gaslighting. A notion that the vaccine never sought to prevent infection (and thus viral transmission). That is obviously and easily proven as completely wrong. But then protection faded maybe quicker than expected, and variants broke expectations and some protections. It sucks, but it's where we're at. The vaccines still have the enormous benefit of reducing case severity, but they certainly did fail in some of the goals. Sidenote: If you are infected and thus replicating SARS-CoV-2 viruses, you have COVID-19 even if entirely asymptomatic. As with the prior points, this is trivial to verify. The "COVID-19 is only severe cases" claim is a part of the prior bit of gaslighting where we're redefining everything to somehow make early proclamations (e.g. "prevents covid-19") fit the unfortunate situation today. Cheers!