Against a background of stalling UK life expectancy, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a different way of working for public health to respond quickly to new and many demands. At the same time, public health teams had to ensure they did not concentrate on the immediate crisis at the expense of mitigating longer-term impacts of the pandemic. This was, and is, a major challenge with additional demands on an already hard-pressed workforce. This paper discusses the experience of a local public health department in responding to the pandemic and raises four key areas that influenced decisions and need to be considered in future. These are care homes issues, addressing all four harms of the pandemic, lessons for behaviour change and the need to strengthen Scotland's public health workforce.