Seventy thousand crew members in 102 ships are stranded in American waters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the ships have seen infections and deaths among the crew but most ships have had no confirmed cases.  

Both national and local governments have stopped crews from disembarking in order to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in their territories.  

Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body.

On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on the Greg Mortimer ship, summoned the strength to take a cold shower fearing the worst: losing consciousness while isolated from others.

Vásquez, 36, and tens of thousands of other crew members have been trapped for weeks aboard dozens of cruise ships around the world - long after governments and cruise lines negotiated their passengers' disembarkation. Some have gotten ill and died; others have survived but are no longer getting paid.

The total number of crew members stranded worldwide was not immediately available.