The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for good quality data. The World Health Organization (WHO) has published recommended data standards for managing information about the pandemic, and in this paper we study an initiative to rapidly disseminate and implement these standards at the national level. A common challenge in standardisation initiatives is the tension between global, “universal” standards and the local. We contribute to the body of knowledge around this tension, through our case that concerns the diffusion of a global standard for management of COVID-19 information using a digital platform. A defining feature of the platform architecture is how it consists of a relatively stable platform core, which can be extended with variable complements. We show how this characteristic can facilitate the dissemination of standards, by allowing implementors of the standards to adapt the standard through innovative complements, thus easing the tension between the “universal” aspects of the standard and the local reality.