Wu Zheng/VCG via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Wu Zheng/VCG via Getty Images A health officer in a protective suit collects a sample from a package of imported frozen food for a coronavirus rapid test at a wholesale market in China. Wu Zheng/VCG via Getty Images At a news conference this week, the World Health Organization made a surprising statement: The coronavirus could possibly be transmitted on frozen packages of food. "We know that the virus can persist and survive in conditions that are found in these cold and frozen environments," says Peter Ben Embarek, the food scientist who led the World Health Organization team that traveled to China to investigate the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. "But we don't really understand if the virus can then transmit to humans."