Objective To investigate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic by a systematic review and single-arm meta-analysis. Methods CNKI, PubMed, EMBASE, and MEDLINE were searched to collect literature on the prevalence of PTSD in the general population during the epidemic. The retrieval time is from the database construction to 31/08/2020. Meta-analysis was performed on the included articles by using Review Manger 5.3 and Stata 16.0 software. Results The prevalence of PTSD in the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic was 15% (95% CI: 11–21%, p<0.001). Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic brought certain mental pain to general population, leading to a rise in the incidence of PTSD in a short time.