Brazil registers 11,598 more cases of coronavirus, 623 new deaths

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Mexico tops 10,000 Covid-19 deaths, the second-highest Latin American tally after Brazil.

Brazil registered 11,598 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 623 additional deaths in the last 24 hours, the nation's Health Ministry said on Monday evening.
Brazil now has registered 526,447 confirmed cases and 29,937 deaths attributed to the virus.
Earlier, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro urged his supporters on Monday to put off their protests against the country's Supreme Court next weekend after counter-demonstrations triggered violent clashes on Sunday.
"Leave things alone on Sunday," the right-wing president said, referring to the protests. He spoke at the gates of his official residence the day after he greeted supporters on horseback at a rally against the top court.
Bolsonaro's critics say he has undermined democracy by endorsing almost weekly protests against the top court, which authorised an investigation into the president for allegedly interfering with police appointments for personal motives.
The judge heading that probe compared Bolsonaro's approach to Hitler's Germany.
Some leftist opposition parties have sought to impeach Bolsonaro. But the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Rodrigo Maia, who would decide whether to open impeachment proceedings, said now was not the time to "add more wood to the fire."
Maia said during an online event he would decide on impeachment requests at "the appropriate time" but Brazil needed to focus on uniting to fight an accelerating coronavirus pandemic to save lives and jobs.
In rallies in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and other big cities on Sunday, militant Bolsonaro supporters urged the military to intervene and close down Congress and the Supreme Court.
Anti-Bolsonaro demonstrators protesting against what they called "fascism" clashed with police in a counter-demonstration on Sao Paulo's main avenue, hurling stones at riot police who responded with tear gas.
Bolsonaro said he had no role in organizing the protests against the Supreme Court. "I don't coordinate anything ... I just attend," he said.
The confrontation between Bolsonaro and the court thrust Brazil into a political crisis in the midst of the world's second worst outbreak of coronavirus that has paralyzed Latin America's largest economy and raised fears of a military coup.
In a newspaper interview published on Monday, Vice President Hamilton Mourao, a retired army general, said there was no danger of a coup. But he urged the country's institutions to allow the democratically elected Bolsonaro to govern.
"Let the guy govern! If he makes mistakes, as others have in the past, there are elections in 2022 and he will be judged by voters," the vice president told newspaper Valor Economico.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Mexico's tally of confirmed Covid-19 deaths passed 10,000 on Monday, the health secretary said, following an increase of 237 on the previous day.
News of the updated toll -- now 10,167 -- came as Mexico announced it was gradually reopening its economy by reactivating its automotive, mining and construction sectors.
Mexico is second only to Brazil in Latin America for Covid-19 deaths, although the South American giant has had close to three times as many.
However, Mexico's death rate compared to cases is much higher.
It recorded almost 2,800 new cases on Monday taking its total over 93,000.
"Today we began production activities related to the automotive industry, mining and the construction industry," President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said earlier on Monday. 
"We have to move towards the new normal because it's necessary for our national economy, our people's wellbeing; we need to, little by little, return production, economic, social and cultural activity to normal."
Mexico shut down all but necessary economic activity on March 23, after Lopez Obrador had come under intense criticism and bucked the regional trend by resisting calls to impose a lockdown much earlier.
On a visit to Quintana Roo state, where the popular Cancun seaside resort is located, Lopez Obrador also said tourism activity would be reopened from next week.