Washington, March 28: Amid the outbreak of coronavirus in the United States, which has led to the closure of all educational institutes, the administration has relaxed the norms for collection of summer school meals. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in its latest order, announced that parents can collect the meals from the schools for their children, with the physical presence of latter. Catch all the live news updates of coronavirus outbreak in India and other parts of the world.

The decision to allow the parents collect meals on behalf of the students was aimed at preventing the minors from leaving their houses amid the spread of pandemic in all parts of the country.

The order was welcomed by the parents' associations, who had cited the risk faced by children while appealing the authorities to waive off the norm which made physical presence of students mandatory.

Despite the USDA order, schools in at least one province - Texas - are not implementing the same citing lack of clarity. Schools operating in the state turned away the parents on Thursday, claiming that there is no mechanism to check whether the food would reach the students or no duplicate meals are issued for the same child.

Amid the row, the Texas Department of Agriculture issued another order, stating that the relaxation in norms announced by the USDA should be implemented in the states as well. The association of schools, however, said the institutes cannot hand over the meals to parents till the department issues a guideline on maintaining an accountability for these handouts.

Schools, colleges and other educational institutes are staring at an indefinite shutdown as the number of coronavirus cases continue to spike across the US. The pandemic has affected more than 100,000 persons and claimed around 600 lives so far. Globally, the death toll has surpassed the 25,000-mark, whereas, the number of COVID-19 positive cases peaked to over 550,000.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 28, 2020 06:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).