How many direct workers per infant are there in daycare, and what's the big source of overhead above that?
In Georgia the ratio is 6:1 for infants. However there is a national daycare certification group NAEYC which has stricter ratios. The daycare where my kids went was NAEYC certified and the ratio was 4:1 for infants.
As someone who has a partner who spent years working in a wide variety of childcare (from "high end" to "low end"), these ratios are _routinely_ ignored. There's also significant pressure to come in when sick. She was very sick - "Well, good thing there's a bathroom in your room, huh?"
On the rare occasions they really couldn't meet staffing levels and didn't open for the day? Congratulations, everyone gets the day off! Unpaid, of course! Why, yes, we're still billing families the normal weekly/monthly rate...
If you've not had an infant with a cold, let alone a room full of them, even 4:1 is cutting pretty close. Sure, when all are healthy and happy, you can maybe go up in ratio. But when things are going not so well then infants need pretty constant care. And things are usually not going well in the winter time.
If RSV or covid is going around, even 1:1 care is pushing it. Our daycare had four in the PICU after a bout of RSV went through. Some are still on a canula, months later. That amount of phlegm really messes with the little ones.