Dumb question about immunity to viruses.

The Salk vaccine is a killed-virus vaccine. As I understand it, the virus in the vaccine is rendered non-viable, but the proteins in the virus coat remain intact enough to trigger the body's immune system.

I've been reading up on how the coronavirus is spread. It's accepted that it's frequently spread through droplets. If the droplets are large, they settle to the ground fairly quickly. If they're tiny, they can stay suspended in the air nearly indefinitely -- but the droplets, being tiny, have a (relatively) large surface area and dry out and absorb oxygen that (at least for lots of viruses) render the viruses nonviable fairly quickly . Whether this is true for COVID-19 is still somewhat uncertain. It is certainly not true for measles, that can stay viable in tiny airborne particles for up to two hours, according to the CDC.

Here's my question: let's say that COVID-19 is rendered nonviable fairly quickly by desiccation and/or oxygen. Still, the proteins in its coat could stay intact in some form much longer. Is it possible that people in an area frequented by people infected with COVID-19 might not become actually infected but would ingest enough non-viable virus to gain some immunity?