BATON ROUGE - The CDC is urging governors across the country to make room to distribute a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

In a news conference Thursday, Governor John Bel Edwards said preparations will have to be made as soon as Nov. 1.

"I don't interpret that to mean that there would be a vaccine available by then, but they want to make sure that we would be able to stand up a distribution system in our state by Nov. 1."

Edwards says he received a letter from CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield Wednesday night. That letter obtained by ABC News said the government is "rapidly making preparations to implement large scale distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the fall of 2020."

The CDC claims that a vaccine could be ready in by October. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, said that's unlikely.

"If someone comes out and says, you know, I'm going to shoot for the possibility that I'll get it by October, you can't argue strongly against that. That's unlikely, not impossible. I think most of the people feel it's going to be November, December. But that does not mean that if there are a number of infections within a particular trial that allows you to make a decision sooner, rather than later. It is conceivable that you could have it by October though. I don't think that that's likely," Fauci said.

Governor Edwards says the state has already begun preparations to remove any barriers that would interfere with the release of a vaccine.

"We're starting today to inventory what all those requirements are. We're seeing which ones we have the ability to waive and whether there might be some others ."

Redfield has said he believes a vaccine will happen by the end of the year.