Classes in CUHK have been suspended since the Chinese New Year vocation due to the recent global outbreak of the new coronavirus.

Face-to-face teaching is replaced by online lectures on Zoom; it has been four weeks since 17 February 2020. I am so glad to learn that many of our students are very motivated to continue their study at home during this difficult period of time.

Thanks to the e-learning experience in Biochemistry Programme over the years, with the aid of some online tools, such as Blackboard, Panopto and Zoom, together with other conventional methods, like telephone calls and emails, we managed to maintain the progress of lecture and tutorial classes, in spite of some minor mistakes, problems, and technical issues. We also started to realize that studying together in the university was indeed so lovely.

Personally, I am the most concerned about those senior laboratory courses, which include some hands on experience and the training of critical thinking skills; we will try to resume the practical work in the teaching laboratories as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we will also have to prepare for the situation, in which face-to-face teaching is suspended continually.

I hope that all of us will take care, stay healthy and be optimistic before we ‘reunite’ in the future; let us prepare for the worst, and yet hope for the best and see whether there is no more untraceable local case in Hong Kong for 28 days in a row… we are writing the history together!