Abstract: The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 highlights the inadequacy of criminal law protection under the emergency prevention and control system of infectious diseases in China. It is necessary for the criminal law to actively intervene in the emergency prevention and control of infectious diseases, but it should uphold the basic value orientation of social protection and human rights protection. Based on the directional principle of legal crime and punishment, the principle of the distinction between breaking the law and crime as well as the equal application of crime and punishment should be the basic position of the criminal law to intervene in the emergency prevention and control of infectious diseases. In the response mechanism for the prevention and control of emergent infectious diseases, it is necessary to improve the relevant provisions of the criminal law, strictly control the establishment of criminal standards, and to take all criminal justice resources into consideration, so as to provide a good judicial guarantee for the prevention and control of epidemic diseases.