I'm still not convinced. How could food not be a vector?
Let's say a food worker coughs while preparing my food, how could I
not pick up the virus from eating it? This confused me as well, which is why I specifically inquired about it. According to Chapman, the risk is minimal. Even if a worker sneezes directly into a bowl of raw salad greens before packing it in a take-out container for you to take home, as gross as it is, it's unlikely to get you sick.
This 2018 overview of both experimental and observational study of respiratory viruses from the scientific journal Current Opion in Virology (COVIRO) explains that respiratory viruses reproduce along the respiratory tract—a different pathway than the digestive tract food follows when you swallow it. And while you might
say that you just inhaled that salad, more likely you ate it with a fork and swallowed it.
Dr. Rasmussen concurs, adding that when actively eating—that is, producing saliva, chewing, and swallowing—we are protected from infection in two ways. First, saliva contains proteolytic enzymes—chemicals that break down proteins—which help break down our food
and pathogens. Second, the act of chewing and swallowing minimizes the amount of time that any potentially infectious viral load is in contact with mucosa or the upper respiratory tract. The less time a pathogen spends in contact with potentially infectable cells, the lower the likelihood of actual infection.
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