As Maryland inches closer to the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine, state and local health officials are preparing in several ways.|| Coronavirus updates | Maryland's latest numbers | Where to get tested ||The Food and Drug Administration is meeting this Thursday and next Thursday about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, respectively, so health officials say now is the time to prepare.A vaccine for COVID-19 could be rolled out in a little more than a week, and local health officials say educating people is one of their biggest challenges."We need to already be doing the work and laying the foundation for those highest-risk groups for when the vaccine does become available in the coming weeks and months," Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dziraza said.Who gets the first limited number of doses is no secret. Phase 1A includes health care workers and first responders. The Maryland Department of Health is working to determine who among them will get the first shots."Initially, it will be about what's the risk for health for individuals and also with health care workers who are caring for those high-risk individuals, and then hand-in-hand is protecting our health care infrastructure," said Dr. Jinlene Chan, deputy secretary for public health with the Maryland Department of Health.Next in line will be people with underlying health conditions at high risk for COVID-19 and those living in congregate settings.Phase 2 includes teachers and school staff, essential workers in high-risk jobs and those living in homeless shelters or group homes.Phase 3 will include children. Both Pfizer and Moderna have already started clinical trials on children as young as 12. "I think what we'll see going forward into 2021, we'll see studies of these vaccines in kids in younger and younger children, and I'm hopeful we'll have vaccines available to children prior to the 2021 school year," said Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Some unknowns remain, namely long-term side effects. The current study participants will continue to be followed for years. While another unknown is how long the immunity lasts, but research is encouraging."My guess is that this isn't going to be a vaccine that we're going to need to give every year like a flu vaccine," Moss said. "I think we're going to see longer term immunity with this, but it still remains an important unanswered question."Doctors advise people to get the vaccine even if you've already had COVID-19 because you can't be sure just how many antibodies a natural infection produces.