Chinese health experts visiting Italy warned that the country may not be taking the stringent lockdown measures seriously enough, even as outside aid groups begin to set up systems to lend support.

The number of coronavirus deaths in Italy passed the total for China on Thursday. And as new infections in China continued to drop, numbers across Europe have exploded.

On a visit to Milan, the vice-president of the Chinese Red Cross, Sun Shuopeng, chided Italians for not taking restrictive measures more seriously. The situation in the northern region of Lombardy region, which has been hit hardest by the outbreak, echoed that in Wuhan, China, during the peak of its epidemic, he said.

Italy was the first western country to introduce lockdown measures, following the model established by the Chinese government. But Sun said the Italian authorities had not gone far enough.

In Milan, public transportation was still moving, and people were still on the streets.

“We need to close the town,” Sun added, prompting Attilio Fontana, the president of Lombardy, to nod vigorously. Fontana has been pushing the national government to adopt stricter measures.

With hospitals overwhelmed, aid groups have also begun setting up in Italy. Samaritan’s Purse, the international Christian relief agency, opened a field hospital on Friday in Cremona to deal with the overflow patients.

Ken Isaacs, vice-president of programmes and government relations for the aid group, described the situation at Cremona’s hospital as “horrific” and “a raging fire”. The agency had already sent equipment and disaster relief personnel, including doctors.