// months ago no one knew what they could use to even treat the condition with drugs to try and reduce the death rate. I believe they now have three, one that they already had, not sure about the other two, but never the less they trailed these drugs and it appears by what I've read that they are making a huge difference in saving lives. I would call that very good progress. So Christmas may not turn out to be tosh for a vaccine. //
Those are drugs that have already been in use for other conditions. They've gone through rigorous testing, and have been shown to be safe. Quite often, drugs are developed for specific conditions and are then found to work for totally different situations.
As for a vaccine by Christmas...
Here's an article from earlier this year...and is even bleaker than the one in my initial link...it's not just the vaccine(s), but the facilities to produce them, the necessary manpower, the production of the means of delivery...and on and on. Of course, maybe things have moved on since this was written.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-covid-vaccine.html