I've worked along scientists a few times, many twiddling their thumbs and coasting along on the back of their PhD. No idea if this applies here, mind you, but I don't see an innate need for that many people, even if this disease has major outbreaks (let's say > 50 cases) every few years.
Impressive judgment from someone who presumably has no knowledge of the types of problems the lab was addressing, the scope of research, the actual individuals employed, or the prior and anticipated impact of their work. This was the whole problem with DOGE: cuts were indiscriminate and based more on feels than factual data. I won't posit that those cuts were all downside - but we will be paying to discover which were really needed for years to come.
You should have mentioned this up front so we all knew you were fully qualified to understand the staffing needs of critical governmental health organizations.
We should also extend that to firefighters, they do nothing most of the time, anyway. Let the fires burn everything and after that let the insurance solve the problems for those who have it.
3 does seem a bit low, though.