(CNN) Some Latin America nations are partially reopening this week, despite still recording thousands of coronavirus deaths and infections.
In Brazil, non-essential businesses can reopen Tuesday in the huge coastal city of Rio de Janeiro.
Churches, car shops and furniture and decoration stores are all permitted to open, while people will also be allowed to exercise along the city's famous promenade and swim in the ocean. The easing of restrictions marks the beginning of six phases of reopening planned by officials.
Phase One is beginning as the state of Rio de Janeiro recorded more than 54,000 cases of the virus and 5,462 deaths. Last week, its death toll surpassed that reported across the whole of China during the epidemic.
Brazil has the second highest number of Covid-19 cases globally, having recorded at least 526,447 instances of the disease. Cases across the country multiplied by five across the month of May, according to Brazil's Health Ministry.
The coronavirus is surging in Brazil
Cemetery workers bury coronavirus victim Elisa Moreira de Araujo at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Thursday, July 16. She was 79.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is seen wearing a face mask in front of his official residence in Brasilia on Wednesday, July 15. Bolsonaro tested positive for Covid-19 again, a week after an initial test indicated he had been infected with the virus.
During a protest calling for Bolsonaro to be impeached, a demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag painted with crosses that symbolize thousands of coronavirus deaths.
Passengers wait on a crowded train platform in Sao Paulo on Monday, July 13.
Volunteers spray disinfectant in a Rio de Janeiro alleyway to help contain the spread of the coronavirus on Sunday, July 12.
Members of the Guarani Mimbya indigenous community wait to be tested in Cananeia, Brazil, on July 10.
Bolsonaro tells the press July 7
that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Bolsonaro had previously appeared in public and at rallies without a face mask, even hugging supporters. "I have to admit, I thought I had gotten it earlier, considering my very dynamic activity in the face of the people," he said. "And I can tell you more, I am the President and I am on the front line, I don't run away from my responsibility nor do I shy away from the people."
This aerial photo shows a man walking past graves in the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, on June 21.
Suzane Valverde, left, hugs her mother, Carmelita, through a plastic curtain at a Sao Paulo nursing home on June 13.
Health workers from Doctors Without Borders visit a squatter camp to conduct medical examinations in Sao Bernardo do Campo on June 3.
A health worker stands on a boat while waiting for an ambulance to help transfer a coronavirus patient in Manacapuru on June 1.
Children eat breakfast during a food distribution in Rio de Janeiro on May 24.
A man waits for his aunt's body to be collected in Manaus on May 24. The public funeral service provided by Manaus City Hall, which helps low-income families hold burials, has seen a dramatic increase in demand due to the coronavirus outbreak.
This aerial photo shows an alleged coronavirus victim being buried at the Vila Formosa Cemetery, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo on May 22.
A nurse holds the arm of a coronavirus patient at a field hospital in Manaus on May 21. The hospital was built exclusively for coronavirus patients.
An indigenous woman holds her children while waiting on testing in Manaus on May 21.
People wear face masks on the Icarai beach in Niteroi on May 21.
A man waits outside a Rio bank to receive government benefits on May 20.
People ride on a train in Sao Paulo on May 19.
Dr. Willie Baracho checks out a patient in a Rio slum on May 19. Staying in isolation has been difficult for residents who live in tightly packed favelas and are forced to go to work in order to maintain an income.
An employee works at a coffin factory in Sao Paulo on May 19.
A resident of Paraisopolis, one of Sao Paulo's largest slums, takes part in a May 18 protest to demand more aid from Sao Paulo's state government.
Gravediggers carry a coronavirus victim during his funeral in Rio de Janeiro on May 18.
A woman holds a Brazilian flag while Bolsonaro supporters take part in a protest in front of the Chinese consulate in Rio on May 17. Protesters were blaming China for being the country where the coronavirus started.
Women dance as an armed forces band plays at a Rio shelter for the elderly on May 14.
Miqueias Moreira Kokama, son of indigenous Chief Messias Kokama, hugs relatives at his father's funeral in Manaus on May 14. Messias Kokama was 53.
Commuters peer through a bus window in Rio on May 12.
A municipal police officer asks a man for his documents at a checkpoint in Rio on May 12.
A funeral worker, wearing protective clothing, prepares to remove a coffin from a home in Manaus on May 7.
Health workers in Rio move a body from cold storage on May 5.
People in Rio wait outside a government-run bank for aid money on April 28.
Water utility workers disinfect a favela in Rio on April 24.
Barbers wear protective face masks as they work in a Rio favela on April 21.
Manicurist Flavia Ferreira cries while she talks about her situation in Rio on April 15. Ferreira hadn't worked since a quarantine was put in place in Rio. She received donations of food from a cultural center and from neighbors in her favela.
A member of a cultural center wears a mask in Rio's Turano favela on April 15.
Leticia Machado, a manicurist who is jobless because of the pandemic, sits listlessly at her home in Rio on April 15.
A city worker disinfects playground equipment in the Andarai favela in Rio on April 13.
Orani Tempesta, the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, celebrates Easter Mass at the Christ the Redeemer statue.
Men in Rio walk past a banner on April 6 that reads "stay at home" in Portuguese.
Despite this, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro said he expected his city to "return to normal" by early August.
"If all parameters are followed, wearing masks and avoiding crowds, we will return to normal life, to the new normal, in August," Marcelo Crivella said Monday.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly ignored the advice of the country's medical authorities by participating in rallies and shaking hands with supporters.
He also dismissed the threat of coronavirus in March, calling it a "little flu."
Deaths surge in Mexico
Mexico reopened several sectors of its economy on Monday, including the mining, construction and tourist industries.
On the same day, the country surpassed 10,000 virus-related deaths, becoming the seventh nation to do so.
Mexico's newly reported cases and deaths continue to rise. The country has at least 93,435 recorded cases of the disease, yet officials have pushed ahead with easing the lockdown with a plan dubbed the "new normal."
To mark the change, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador began a tour on Monday in the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancún is located.
Obrador, who has not traveled since late March, said Mexico's economy had to reopen "for the good of the people." He added that the easing of the lockdown had to be managed cautiously and carefully.
Mexico has recorded the second highest number of deaths in Latin America.
Other countries reopening in the region include Ecuador, where some international and domestic flights resumed from 1 June.
A new epicenter
Other Latin American countries continue to enforce stringent lockdown measures.
Peru's President Martin Vizcarra has extended the country's national emergency until the end of June. Peru closed its borders in mid-March but has recorded at least 170,039 coronavirus cases.
Chile, which also remains under tight restrictions, has also been badly hit by the virus with at least 105,158 cases.
And in El Salvador, the government has been sending people who break a virus-related curfew to "quarantine centers" -- a measure ruled unconstitutional by the country's Supreme Court.
In late May, the Pan American Health Organization declared Latin America the world's new coronavirus epicenter.
And on Monday, the World Health Organization said Central and South America had become "intense zones of transmission" for the virus.
"Five of the 10 countries worldwide reporting the highest new number of cases in the past 24 hours are in the Americas: Brazil, USA, Peru, Chile and Mexico," said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Program.
Ryan said the world had previously been focused on South Asia and Africa as potential Covid-19 hotspots.
Now "to a certain extent, the situation in those two settings are still difficult, but ... stable," he said. "Clearly the situation in many South American countries is far from stable. There's been a rapid increase in cases, and those systems are coming under increasing pressure."
"I would certainly characterize that Central and South America, in particular, have very much become the intense zones of transmission for this virus as we speak," he added. "I don't believe that we have reached the peak in that transmission, and at this point, I cannot predict when we will."
CNN's Chandler Thornton, Taylor Barnes, Claudia Rebaza and Amanda Watts contributed to this report.