Abstract: In the era of big data, data plays an essential role in helping to fight the epidemic as an important element resource. This paper believes that the improvement of data governance capabilities can effectively improve the government’s ability to react to major public health emergencies. Taking COVID-19 epidemic as an example, this paper analyzes how data is reasonably applied to major public health emergencies, and elaborates some problems and deficiencies in data governance in public emergencies. The paper also discusses how to improve the data governance capabilities of governments in public health emergencies, and proposes corresponding policies.