Dyspnea is not necessarily a symptom of novel coronavirus pneumonia; it does have a very characteristic manifestation of dyspnea after 1 week of illness, but it is not the only symptom of novel coronavirus pneumonia; dyspnea is clinically present in acute laryngitis, wheezing bronchitis, bronchial asthma, tracheal and bronchial foreign bodies, and intratubular and extratubular compression. The suspected diagnosis of novel coronavirus pneumonia is conditioned by an epidemiologic history and clinical manifestations of novel coronavirus pneumonia. The clinical manifestations are as follows: 1) fever, dry cough, and malaise as the first symptoms, followed by dyspnea after 1 week; 2) blood counts showing normal or decreased total white blood cell counts and decreased lymphocyte counts; and 3) lung CT showing characteristic imaging changes of viral infection. If 2 of the epidemiologic history and clinical manifestations are present, or if there is no epidemiologic history but all 3 of the clinical manifestations are present, a diagnosis of suspected novel coronavirus pneumonia can be made, and further nucleic acid testing or gene sequencing can be done after immediate isolation.