This virus is not foodborne, you don't have to worry about that. You'd need a sick person to flat out sneeze on your food but if someone did that precovid he wouldn't serve you that food.
There have been no recent studies saying that it survives on cooked food.
That same view has been held since at least February- March, where several sources say as much.
However, we have also seen several new developments about the virus since then. There are a lot of symptoms and health consequences that were not known. The virus is still a mystery on several fronts. Could well be that saliva in the form of spittle and aerosols landing on cooked food remains a non-issue.
When I mentioned the takeout place I used to go to, my red flag was the food preparer choosing to no longer wear a mask. Everyone else visiting the restaurant was wearing masks, why shouldn't he? I think it would be reassuring to clients to see everyone wearing a mask on the premises. I don't know that it's too much to ask, we're in the middle of rising virus numbers.
As to your example of a sick person sneezing or having covid symptoms and taking themselves out and not working, it really depends on several factors that are mostly unverifiable for us as clients. For instance, the restaurant I went to is owned and operated by 2 individuals who are always on the job. Who is monitoring them? Would they voluntarily close the restaurant if one of them gets symptoms? They have rent and overhead to pay. Would they do the right thing? Who can tell they are even having symptoms -- it's not as if they'd be taking a test and you could verify it.
So much of this depends on the goodwill of people involved when it comes to small restaurants, family owned set ups. I think it's more likely that someone with covid symptoms gets flagged in a restaurant where there are a lot of employees in the kitchen, perhaps they have more recurring testing, there are protocols that are enforced, etc. But at a mom and pop restaurant, you don't have those extra layers of surveillance -- you're really at the mercy of the goodwill of those who are controlling that environment since they are privy to information that they may not share with you and which you can't readily verify. And even testing has its shortcomings.
Hence my comment about rather being safe than sorry. I strongly believe that if all the customers who show up for a takeout at a fast food restaurant are wearing masks, then so should the people preparing food. In my case, one of the restaurant owners ditched his mask when I was there. To me, that signaled that he didn't care enough about me for me to keep ordering from his establishment.
