[Goose]

You are right, and I suspect there were many things "worked out" in advance.  However, you can't work everything out in advance without knowing vaccine-specific data, such as how many doses will be available and when, what the storage requirements will be, how many doses will need to be given, and even who will be distributing the vaccine and how.  Saying "healthcare workers first" is easy; it is much harder to do so when you have to worry about healthcare workers in rural hospitals getting two shots of a vaccine that needs to be stored at -80.  Not to say it can't be done, of course, but, my guess is that the broad outlines have been in place for a while (in fact, were required by the federal government at least a month ago), but the final details are dependent on exactly which vaccine(s) are approved and when.

BC

BC, I would have thought things like storage at -80 would have been been an issue for a while, as it isn't a "new" requirement for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. That has been known for quite a while, and certainly the two doses has been known at least back to when they filed the clinical trial plan (and probably earlier), has it not? The other issues you point out (rural health care workers, who will distribute the vaccine etc.) are certainly important, but also possible to anticipate and plan for, given the "warp speed" risk funding of production etc. Not to say these things are easy, but all the more reason to figure out how to do them as early as possible. In fact, there should be multiple plans in place, because they couldn't know in advance which vaccines would receive EUAs/full approvals at all, let alone when.
The "final details" certainly do depend on how many doses will be available when and FOB where. These things can be planned but it isn't actionable until it happens. Things do tend to get delayed, even with risk funding and a good production plan. Otherwise, I would expect the overall plan to be totally worked out well in advance. Naturally, some things won't actually happen according to plan, but I am still surprised there are as many unknowns in "the plan" as there appears to be.

[Goose]

You are right, and I suspect there were many things "worked out" in advance.  However, you can't work everything out in advance without knowing vaccine-specific data, such as how many doses will be available and when, what the storage requirements will be, how many doses will need to be given, and even who will be distributing the vaccine and how.  Saying "healthcare workers first" is easy; it is much harder to do so when you have to worry about healthcare workers in rural hospitals getting two shots of a vaccine that needs to be stored at -80.  Not to say it can't be done, of course, but, my guess is that the broad outlines have been in place for a while (in fact, were required by the federal government at least a month ago), but the final details are dependent on exactly which vaccine(s) are approved and when.

BC

BC, I would have thought things like storage at -80 would have been been an issue for a while, as it isn't a "new" requirement for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. That has been known for quite a while, and certainly the two doses has been known at least back to when they filed the clinical trial plan (and probably earlier), has it not? The other issues you point out (rural health care workers, who will distribute the vaccine etc.) are certainly important, but also possible to anticipate and plan for, given the "warp speed" risk funding of production etc. Not to say these things are easy, but all the more reason to figure out how to do them as early as possible. In fact, there should be multiple plans in place, because they couldn't know in advance which vaccines would receive EUAs/full approvals at all, let alone when.
The "final details" certainly do depend on how many doses will be available when and FOB where. These things can be planned but it isn't actionable until it happens. Things do tend to get delayed, even with risk funding and a good production plan. Otherwise, I would expect the overall plan to be totally worked out well in advance. Naturally, some things won't actually happen according to plan, but I am still surprised there are as many unknowns in "the plan" as there appears to be.