Plastics have helped a lot in the hygiene aspects of food, as much as some people think (very naively) that food can't make you sick. Especially if you live in a country with warmer temperatures and low infrastructure (hello Climate Change)
I ran a restaurant in college and had to become a certified food manager (a step up from the line food handler). So while I won’t prentend to have all the data, it was clear that simple processes prevent 99.99% of food borne illness, and not one law required plastic gloves! In fact they expressly warned NOT to use gloves if you were not sure they were food grade.
If you follow the simple rules, most illness is caused by tainted supply.
The most common infraction I saw was failing to wash hands, followed by not separating meats from other stations. (Work surface, knives, hand washing, etc)
In a busy kitchen, you would be shocked at how much cross contamination occurs every single day, plastic or not. Plastic is not the solution, training and oversight is the essential thing.
I don't disagree with the points you make, but you're thinking of "the last mile". Think of the steps before the food got to the restaurant or consumer:
For example: delivery of water to locations where the local source is suspected to be contaminated, packaging of meat products from market to consumer, handling of refrigerated or wet products, to name a few
Of course it's not the whole story, a lot of food-borne illnesses have their origin at the producing farm.
