Ultimately what matters is the entire application, database queries and all, works. I think calling out to the DB in tests is important for ensuring the entire app works.
This is true. I think however this is not relevant to unit tests. If you choose not to do unit tests, because they're not valuable in your software compared to automating end to end tests, that's fair enough, but on the topic of unit tests, talking to a db isn't really a thing.