Local health officials are already planning how to distribute a potential vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

Officials with the Trumbull County Combined Health and the Mahoning County Public Health districts are working off of guidelines presented in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 Vaccination Program Interim Playbook for Jurisdiction Operations. It details the order in which the vaccine should be distributed, if availability is limited.

The playbook advises health districts to count up how many people in the county work in different fields, because the vaccine will first be distributed to certain populations, before it is widely available, if initial doses are limited.

A vaccine has not yet been approved for distribution.

But the CDC states in its playbook that a vaccine will be essential to “reduce COVID-19-related illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths and to help restore societal functioning.”

“The goal of the U.S. government is to have enough COVID-19 vaccine for all people in the United States who wish to be vaccinated. Early in the COVID-19 vaccination program, there may be a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine, and vaccination efforts may focus on those critical to the response, providing direct care to, and maintaining societal function, as well as those at highest risk for developing severe illness from COVID-19,” the playbook states.

The Ohio Department of Health has not yet produced a vaccine plan, said Ryan Tekac, Mahoning County health commissioner.

Read MORE in Sunday’s VINDICATOR