Viral Lessons from Downton Abbey

What exactly is one to watch when the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is cancelled and Major League Baseball never starts? That is the question which I, like millions of others, have asked these last many weeks of ‘physical distancing’, the prescription to defeat COVID-19.  My answer was to go in the entirely opposite direction from sports. I settled on several shows to fill the gaps in my late evenings, one of which was a well-known show set in the early 1900’s, Downton Abbey. This would be my antidote to my raging Badgers and Brewers fever.

In Season Two, the aristocratic owners and servants of Downton Abbey have more to worry about than whether the table is set correctly and tea is served at the proper time. Following World War I the household is beset by the onslaught of the Spanish Flu of 1918. It leads to misery and death, striking the wealthy and the poor alike.  They either didn’t know about or believe in ‘social distancing’ and the effects on the family and friends were devastating.

Watching it in 2020, the lessons from the Abbey jump off of the screen. We are going through the same devastation their world experienced. It affects the wealthy, the poor and everyone in between. People once secure in their station in life are now thrown into doubt and fear about survival, both economically and physically.

The television series moves on to new plot lines, but, just as in real life, the effects of the pandemic change the story for the rest of their lives. People’s lives are so intertwined that the death of one affects many.  Today, as we are trying to ‘move on’ with life in our nation and in the nations of the world,  it is tempting to ignore the lessons of history and to disregard science.

 I, for one, don’t want to spend the rest of 2020 watching Downton Abbey instead of the Brewers and Badgers. But it seems to me the lessons of 1918 are clear: we either respect and defeat the virus now by ‘taking our medicine’ or we ignore the past and watch the virus defeat us, changing the plot lines of our lives, again and forever.  Good thing I have a few more seasons to watch.