It didn't until now but one time I went out for pizza for lunch and the manager brought one of the employees over to the table next to us. He turned over the table, gave the employee a knife and told her to start scraping all of the dried boogers and dried gum and stuff from under the tables so yeah, mouths aren't the only gross places that silverware's been! Mmm, yummy!
Never gave it any thought, but only the thought that maybe the server might have been picking their nose or scratching their ass before handling the plates and flatware.
When you're eating food that has been prepared out of your sight and handled by strangers who may or may not practice proper hand hygiene, the fork which has been through a sanitizing dishwashing machine is the least of your worries.
Not in the least. The crockery and cutlery go straight into vast dishwashing machines. The water used in them has been purified and chlorinated. And it's at such a high temperature that it sterilizes everything. I'd trust restaurant forks far more than I would the forks at a friend's place or even my own.
Flu is a different matter. Just breathing the air within one meter of someone in the infectious stage, or touching something they've breathed on is enough to catch the bug.
But I have a different attitude. I think is healthy to catch the flu once a year. It helps keep my immune system better able to adjust to the mutations.
Benedict Arnold 