If anything, the United States has doubled down, imposing fresh sanctions as recently as two weeks ago, even as it offered Iran medical aid to help combat the pandemic, aid Iran has refused.

The United States frequently reiterates that the sanctions exempt the sale of medicine and medical devices. However, American secondary sanctions on financial institutions and companies that do business with Iran have made it nearly impossible for Iran to buy items like ventilators to treat coronavirus patients.

The sanctions “have largely deterred international banks and firms from participating in commercial or financial transactions with Iran, including for exempted humanitarian transactions, due to the fear of triggering U.S. secondary sanctions on themselves,” Human Rights Watch found in a report last year, months before the coronavirus emerged.

Now the need for such equipment is urgent.

“U.S. sanctions are stopping medical equipment from being sent to Iran,” Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a tweet on Tuesday. “As a result, innocent people are dying.”

Iran’s leadership also bears a share of the blame for its fumbling response to the crisis.

The virus was first detected in Iran in late February, but the government, ignoring the advice of its own health experts, took no action to enforce social distancing or lock down affected areas until this week, allowing the virus to spread unchecked and turning Iran into a regional hub for the outbreak.