A collaborative effort between Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE), Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU APL), and ESRI Living Atlas Team, the repository contains data on confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths, recoveries, and tests at the national and state/province province level from January 22, 2020 to March 10, 2023.

Throughout the lifetime of the project, sources of data include DXY (for mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), national government health departments, US state and local health departments, and other data aggregating websites such as 1point3acres, Worldometers.info, BNO, and the COVID Tracking Project.