Both teams of HKLife, in Hong Kong and in Beijing, are working around the clock to develop sensitive and specific diagnostic tests for the new coronavirus COVID-19. Due to the epidemic crisis, the government rapidly put in place compulsory control measures for municipal transportation and postponed resumption to work. This meant that for outsourced experimental reagents, such as enzymes, primers, and reagents, either the items were out of stock or staff members still had not resumed work. Moreover, we could not gain access to viral samples to act as positive controls. All these external factors hindered our progress but our team undertook positive counter measures: where delivery was delayed, we went to pick up in person; where one supplier was out of stock, we contacted ten other suppliers; where necessary, we prepared the reagents ourselves; and we used synthesized plasmids for positive control. We overcame all these difficulties, and each member of the team continues to maintain an enthusiastic and fighting spirit. The test results are very promising and development of the diagnostic tests look close to success. We hope that our diagnosis platforms can help to resolve the urgent need for accurate diagnostics and contribute to the fight against the epidemic.