Acute respiratory tract infection is a serious health problem that deserves consideration. Many causes are responsible for this problem, but viruses are the most important of these causes. Generally, infection with the upper respiratory tract viruses causes mild symptoms, but in the case of populations at risk, such as newborns, the elderly, as well as immunoincompetent patients, these viruses cause serious diseases and symptoms that can be life-threatening. Moreover, viruses can mutate and cross the species barrier, causing epidemics, such as what is happening during 2019-2020 in the case of SARS-CoV-2 infection and what happened previously as in SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Traditional plants have been used worldwide as a dietary supplements and as traditional treatment regimens for many diseases. Accordingly, The main focus of this review is to highlight traditional plants that have shown experimental and clinical anti-viral activity against respiratory tract viruses and their potential benefits in prevention and treatment of COVID-19.