The aim of the study is to show the mutual relations between the government administration and local government units in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article uses the decision-making method in order to analyse the actions taken and the decision-making process. Discourse analysis is used to study the communication process between the government administration and local government administration. To analyse the legal acts adopted during the pandemic, an institutional and legal analysis was used. New, serious challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic did not change the difficult, tense relations between the local government and the central administration, nor did they weaken the conflict between them. In the period of the epidemic, the current animosities, which had existed even before its outbreak, were reinforced. They were related to the dispute between the omnipotence of the state and decentralist tendencies. Additionally, new discrepancies, resulting from the consequences of the epidemic and radical actions taken in relation to it, arose.