Objective To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 prevention and control measures on the disease burden of upper respiratory infections (URIs) in China. Methods Age-standardized incidence rate, mortality rate, and di-sability-adjusted life-year rate in Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 database were used to describe the disease burden and compared before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. The disease burden in 2022-2024 was predicted by the autoregressive integrated moving average model in R 4.4.0 software. Results The disease burden of URIs in China showed a fluctuating downward trend from 1990 to 2021. Age-standardized incidence rate, mortality rate, and disability-adjusted life-year rate showed a downward trend from 2018 to 2019. The age-standardized incidence rate decreased from 137 869.97/100 000 (95%UI: 121 058.04/100 000-158 137.76/100 000) in 2019 to 137 060.04/ 100 000 (95%UI: 120 167.04/100 000-156 888.93/100 000) in 2020. The age-standardized mortality rate were 0.15/100 000 (95%UI: 0.09/100 000-0.40/100 000) and 0.15/100 000 (95%UI: 0.09/100 000-0.38/100 000), respectively. The age-standardized disability-adjusted life-year rate decreased from 51.76/100 000 (95%UI: 32.16/100 000-77.43/100 000) to 51.44/100 000 (95%UI: 32.19/100 000-76.90/100 000). In 2021, the above-mentioned indicators were higher than those in 2020, but still lower than those in 2019. The autoregressive integrated moving average model predicted that over the next three years, the age-standardized incidence rate and disability-adjusted life-year rate might show an upward trend, and the age-standardized mortality rate was likely to decline. Conclusion The disease burden of URIs in China shows a downward trend, and declines significantly after the outbreak of COVID-19. After COVID-19 being categorized as a class B infectious disease managed with class B measures, the age-standardized incidence rate increases, which reflects the effectiveness of the COVID-19 prevention and control measures on reducing the disease burden of URIs.