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The pandemic COVID-19 which has spread over the world in early 2020 has caused significant impacts not only on health and life, but also on production activities and freight work. However, few studies were about the effect of COVID-19 on the performance of cities' logistics. Hence, this study focuses on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and compares the changes in logistics performance from a spatial perspective caused by COVID-19 that are reflected on the highway freight between its 18 node cities in 2019 and 2020 of the same periods for 72 days. This study uses the entropy weight method to reflect the impact that COVID-19 has caused to the logistics level. Based on the modified gravity model, the impact on the logistics spatial connection between node cities was analyzed. These two aspects have been combined to analyze the logistics performance. The results show that the node cities have been affected by COVID-19 dissimilarly, and the impact has regional characteristics. The logistics level and spatial connection of Wuhan are the most seriously declined. The decline in logistics level has the same spatial variation law as the confirmed cases. The logistics connection between Wuhan and the surrounding node cities and the three-node cities in the northeast of China are also severely affected by the pandemic because of the expressway control policies. The regional distribution of logistics performance has differences, and the correlation of the logistics level and logistics spatial connection decreases. Besides, this study puts forward different recovery suggestions and policies for different belts in the BRI, such as focusing on restoring areas and giving full play to the role of the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration and logistics corridor. Finally, further provides corresponding suggestions for reducing the impact of emergencies from the perspectives of logistics hubs. • The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cities' logistics performance from China's highway freight transport. • The differences in logistics level and spatial connection of node cities in BRI affected by COVID-19 over the same period. • The impact of pandemic policy on logistics performance was explored. • The suggestions for reducing the impact of emergencies from the perspectives of logistics hubs and different belts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]