Interpretive theory of translation allows us to consider translation as a tool for studying the process of understanding. The study of the mechanisms of perception and understanding of the text in the process of English-Ukrainian translation permits to clarify the specifics of decoding information about COVID-19 in the pandemic of 2020. The article explains the basic models of understanding popular science text about COVID-19 in the process of English-Ukrainian translation. The material was a popular science text in English about COVID-19, as well as draft and final versions of the translation of answers to 5 questions obtained during a psycholinguistic experiment from 50 respondents. The methodological basis of the study is formed by psycholinguistic experiment (as the main method), quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, comparative analysis, contextual analysis. The theoretical basis of the article consists of the works of Zimnjaja, Peshkova, Novikov, Avakjan. The comparison of draft and final versions of translations helped the authors to determine the features of understanding the content at different stages of translation, as well as the influence of subjective factors on this process: 1) subjects used two main models -- expanding meaning and narrowing meaning; 2) about 30% of the subjects demonstrate the action of the mechanisms of meaning formation at the first stage; 3) the strategy of attribution or conjecture is fixed at the second stage in the subject area of 'precautionary measures'; 4) the main difficulties of translation are connected with ignorance of terms of subject areas 'symptoms of COVID-19' and 'neurological complications'.