Chinese scientists and the Beijing government have impressed the U.S. medical community with their quick response and decisive measures in the face of the outbreak of viral pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). 

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, U.S., spoke to CGTN on Tuesday and said he applauded Chinese scientists for quickly detecting the full gene sequence of the novel coronavirus. 

"I think the Chinese government is actually doing a pretty good job. Given how infectious this virus is and how new this virus is in terms of understanding it, they've worked pretty quickly and aggressively for quarantine measures and in building new infectious disease hospitals. So I give a fair amount of credit to the government leadership of China, and I also give an enormous amount of credit to the scientific community," he said. 

Dr. Hotez also said the new coronavirus is 82% similar to SARS. "So we have some optimism that the SARS vaccine that we developed jointly with Fudan University may indeed be protective also against this coronavirus. But with any vaccine it requires lots of safety testing."