Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there has been a rapid increase in clinical researches of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As a major public health event, the related research work has higher requirements for ethical review. We expounded the challenges faced by the ethical review work under pandemic, and also proposed countermeasures and suggestions by learning from the practical experience of Shuguang Hospital of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine for the purpose of ensuring the health and safety of subjects and researchers during the special periods as well as the standardized and orderly development of clinical research.