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HANGZHOU -- East China's Zhejiang province has begun giving COVID-19 vaccinations to children aged 3 and above, a local health official said Tuesday.

Xia Shichang, deputy director of the provincial health commission, said that the province has expanded its COVID-19 vaccination program to cover children from the age of 3, rather than limiting vaccination to those aged 12 and above, as was previously the case.

According to the press conference, the changes are in line with the unified deployment of the State Council's joint prevention and control mechanism for the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, based on previous vaccination work. Previously, health authorities across China were providing vaccinations to children aged 12 and above, but this has now been expanded to include younger children.

Local health authorities plan to finish the inoculation of the first shot of inactivated vaccines before Nov 20 and the second shot before Dec 20.