Havering Council's director of public health Mark Ansell. - Credit: Havering Council The Covid pandemic has shone a light on people whose work would not normally be in the public eye. One such person is Mark Ansell, Havering Council's director of public health. He has been a key player in the authority's response to the virus throughout the past 12 months. The first recorded coronavirus case in the borough was on March 6 last year and Mark said the council's flu pandemic planning meant it didn't have "a blank piece of paper". "But what we were planning for in terms of the flu pandemic wasn't Covid. We, like everyone else, have developed things as we had to."