The Land of the Free is facing a bizarre but potentially devastating educational problem as laptops, in particular Chromebooks, are in high demand as many schools are going all-in on remote teaching following the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19. This hasn't exactly been helped by the pandemic causing the closure of many of China's laptop factories.
According to Axios, an American news outlet that specialises in short but well-founded news stories, sales have been rising with apparently no upper limit every single week since March, and on August 10, 24 out of 28 Chromebook models were sold out at Best Buy.
Axios also reached out to Acer America, which has received requests from the governments of California and Nebraska in regards to the purchase of "hundreds of thousands of devices." Asked if there will be enough Chromebooks to support remote learning, the answer was: "Not even close".
This is despite the company using air freight, saving at least three weeks on transport, but still, it will most likely take months before demand can be met.
To add further problems, Internet connections in America are poor when compared to European standards, making online education even more difficult. And as schools started loaning out laptops to students in March, existing resources are no longer available.