Jenna Antico, a 31-year-old childcare operator in Sarasota, Fla., thought 2020 would be a pivotal year for her business. The daycare facility she started building in 2015 was turning a steady profit, so she leased a second building in October 2019, then purchased a third in late February 2020. As it turned out, this year has indeed been pivotal—but not in the way she had hoped. When COVID-19 hit the United States like a tsunami in March, shuttering schools and businesses, and prompting companies to start working remotely, daycares like Antico’s got caught up in the current.