This article introduces safety management strategies of nasopharyngeal specimen collection from suspected cases of coronavirus disease 2019 in a tertiary designated hospital. The key points include establishing a special sampling room, strict sterilization of the entire environment, training of professional nurses, enhancement of personal protection, standardization of methods and processes for swab collection, and a timely and safety sample submission. More than 11,000 nasopharyngeal specimens were collected by eight nurses, with an average of 1,375 specimen swab collections each nurse, and no one was infected. (c) 2020 Chinese Nursing Association. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).