Purpose: This study aimed to investigate sub-health status (SHS) of people living in China during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infection-induced acute infectious disease, which is featured by universal susceptibility and strong infectivity, and SHS (a status of low quality health) refers to a status of low-quality health. COVID-19 has gradually developed into a global pandemic, making the public in a high stress situation in physiological, psychological and social states in the short term. Methods: From March 6 to 11, 2020, a large-scale cross-sectional survey was conducted by convenient sampling, and SHS assessment scale was used in the questionnaire. The ordinal logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors affecting SHS. Results: In this study, 17,078 questionnaires were delivered with 16,820 effective questionnaires collected, and 10,715 subjects (63.7%) were found with SHS, with moderate SHS primarily. Physiological sub-scale scored the highest, followed by psychological and social sub-scales. Ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that man, only-child, workers and farmers were risk factors of SHS. Protective factors of SHS included living in rural areas and townships, laid-off retirees and education degree. Conclusion It shows many people in China place in a poor health status during COVID-19 pandemic. It is necessary that relevant departments pay more attention to people with poor health such as men, only-child, urban people, workers and farmers, and groups with high education degree during and after pandemic stabilization.