CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday ordered all residents across the state to stay home, venturing outside only for essential jobs and errands.

The order covering the state's 12.6 million people will take effect Saturday evening at 5 p.m. and last through April 7, banning residents leaving their homes for any social gathering or work for non-essential businesses.

Residents will still be allowed to leave their homes for some reasons, like exercise, walking the dog, picking up medicine, getting take-out orders from restaurants and shopping for groceries, Pritzker said. All roads in the state will also remain open.

"I didn't come to this decision easily," Pritzker said in a Friday news conference. “I fully recognize, in some cases, I am choosing between saving people’s lives and saving people’s livelihoods. But ultimately you can't have a livelihood if you don’t have your life."

Pritzker said medical experts advised him that, if left unchecked, the pandemic would create the same disastrous effects on the Illinois healthcare system now seen in Italy, where 3,405 people had died from COVID-19 by Thursday afternoon.