Objective  This study conducted bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 related literature, to understand the research status of COVID-19, explore the latest progress and research trends in the field of COVID-19 research, and provide data support for the construction of a comprehensive and detail system based on COVID-19 literature.

  Methods   Using Web of Science as the data source, using VOSviewer and CiteSpace as visualization tools, this study searched English literature related to COVID-19 published between January 2020 and January 2022, and analyzed the publication time, country, key words, institution and discipline category of the literature.

  Results   A total of 158 413 articles or reviews related to COVID-19 were retrieved. The high-frequency keywords include Mental health, COVID-19 infection, Risk factors, Health-care and COVID-19 vaccine, etc., which mainly present 5 clusters. The four most influential subject categories are general internal medicine, public, environmental and occupational health, and infectious diseases. The organization with the most publications is Harvard Medical School, and the organization with the most citations is Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Among all countries, the United States and China are at the leading level in the number of publications, citations, and funding frequency. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has the highest funding frequency for COVID-19 research, four of the top ten funds are from China.

  Conclusion   The research focus of COVID-19 has gradually expanded from public health and clinical medicine to social environment, economy, education and life, and its influence has gradually expanded. In addition, the specific classification of research fields and disciplines of COVID-19 literature needs to be further refined.