MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Doctors are urging Minnesotans to take COVID-19 seriously and to comply with new restrictions that take effect Friday night.

They appeared with Gov. Tim Walz to provide dramatic accounts of how the state’s health care system is at a breaking point — especially its health care workers.

Dr. Carolyn McClain, a Twin Cities emergency physician, told reporters there's nothing harder than seeing people praying in a hospital parking lot, when their family member is critically ill and they can’t go in.

She spoke a day Walz ordered bars, restaurants, gyms and amateur sports to shut down for for four weeks.

CentraCare is taking actions across its network of facilities to help reduce the heavy patient volumes St. Cloud Hospital is currently experiencing.

1,500 Mayo Clinic healthcare workers have tested positive for COVID-19, including more than 900 in the past two weeks.

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