You should go with what your local health department says, but yes a 10 day quarantine of the offending animal before starting prophylaxis is standard practice. At least for domestic animals. Wild animals are usually put down for testing if they're available I believe.

A vaccine is a substance you give to stimulate an immune response against something else. Even traditional anti-virus vaccines aren't always given before disease exposure. E.g. rabies vaccines are almost always given after exposure. Typically after the 10 days of watching the possibly rabid animal that just bit you to see if it really had rabies.