For many Americans, classic Disney films defined their childhoods. Yet in Asia, a different animation studio captured the imagination of a generation: Japan’s Studio Ghibli. Founded in 1985 by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli has produced 20 animated films full of the fantastical and whimsical, the realistic and the thought-provoking.

Editor’s Note: WORLD will periodically update this interactive timeline as the coronavrius pandemic unfolds.

On the evening of April 30, CTBC Brothers faced off against the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in a stadium in the southern city of Tainan. Typically, baseball games in Taiwan are noisy affairs with rowdy crowds and cheerleaders beating drums and leading call-and-response chants as spectators chomp on sweet Taiwanese sausages and fried chicken. 

November 17

A 55-year-old in China’s central Hubei province is the first known person to contract the disease COVID-19 caused by the new coronavirus (according to Chinese government data revealed in March 2020).

December 8

Date established by the World Health Organization (WHO) of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 reported by Chinese authorities. An analysis of the first 41 patients found 27 had direct exposure to a Wuhan seafood market, although this case did not.

Halfway through Angela Hsu’s Austria trip in early March, the coronavirus outbreak in Europe began to intensify and the cities on her itinerary started shutting down. During her first few days in Austria, locals seemed unfazed by the novel coronavirus. But by the time she, her dad, and two family friends left on March 16, the country had more than a thousand cases and was enacting emergency policies. Their flight back to her home in Taiwan was canceled, but they were able to book seats on a nearly empty China Airlines flight the same day.

The last time Susanna Koh saw her husband, Pastor Raymond Koh, was on the morning of Feb. 13, 2017. 

She was babysitting for a friend when he dropped by to pick up a packet of shrimp paste to give to another friend. 

Then as he drove down a leafy residential street in Petaling Jaya, a city west of Kuala Lumpur, three black SUVs surrounded his car. Several men wearing ski masks and black clothing forced Koh out of his Honda Accord and into their vehicle. Then they took off with his car. The whole abduction took less than a minute.

With heavy snowfall in the winter, Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido, is a popular tourist destination with ski resorts, festivals featuring snow and ice sculptures, and the famous Hokkaido ice cream. But lately Hokkaido has another claim to fame: the prefecture with the highest number of coronavirus infections in the country with 111 cases.