Maybe they were just not vaccinated, and as holdouts encouraged the people under them to take the same approach. If this was the case, there would probably would be a lot more shrill and performative media hysterics though, it has to be said.

Also Minot (along with Dyess AFB) has some shadowy past history with mishandling of nukes, I wonder if this is some long-delayed consequence of what happened way back in 2007 under W Bush.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident

https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384749.html

The Air Force’s Friday report on the August 29-30 nuclear weapons incident which saw six armed cruise missiles flown across the continental US in launch position on a B-52H bomber leaves all the big questions unanswered, attempting to shuck the whole thing off as an “unacceptable mistake.”

https://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog/2007/09/six-soldiers-involved-in-minot-afb-nuclear-incident-have-died-mysteriously/