The article is devoted to the analysis of word-formation neologisms in modern media speech from the point of view of their sociocultural characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic (on Russian and Czech internet speech). In derivational processes, socially significant, socalled key words play an important role, forming a special socio-cultural space, thereby becoming a kind of dominants in modern speech. Such lexemes give a life to a big quantity of derived units. So, neologisms with initial words reflecting the situation of a pandemic in 2020 in modern Russian and Czech society, clearly enough evidence of public attitudes - a negative assessment and rejection of what is happening and at the same time irony and a language game.