BATON ROUGE - As the worldwide race for a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine continues, the Louisiana Department of Health is continuing the process of developing a vaccine distribution plan. Those preparations started in June and on Wednesday, LDH announced its plan has been submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is under review.

Through a coalition of academic, government, non-government, and community partners, LDH based the coronavirus vaccination plan on the previous pandemic flu plan, which has been around for two decades.

"There is much we do not know about the COVID vaccine, including the number of doses we’ll get and what the timing between doses will be. We do have more general information in the plan, which includes receipt allocation, distribution, administration, and documentation, such as information about our immunization registry," LDH said in the statement to WBRZ Wednesday evening.

LDH also said it has done extensive planning for vaccination prioritization, estimating the number of people in different occupational groups to prioritize the distribution of the vaccine to individuals such as fron-tline healthcare workers and first responders.

"This will allow us to expand distribution out to other groups to the point where we can provide a vaccine to each person in Louisiana. Prioritization work also includes planning for distribution to areas of the state that may have high community spread at the time a vaccine arrives, especially among priority groups," LDH stated.

The department has worked alongside the Governor's health equity task force to look at distribution to vulnerable communities that may have a difficult time getting access to healthcare.

LDH says a state immunization registry will serve as an indicator to assist in determining where people are more or less likely to get the vaccine.

"We understand that there is always questions around new vaccines, and we’ll be working to educate the public about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness," LDH said.