US, UK, France, Portugal and Greece all break new daily cases records – as it happened

US reports 512,553 cases; UK reports 129,000; France reports 179,807; Portugal 17,172; and Greece 21,657

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Stock markets have continued to gain ground despite the surge of Omicron around the world.

Asian markets lifted on Tuesday with the Nikkei in Japan up nearly 1%, Shanghai up 0.2%, Seoul up 0.1% and Sydney's ASX200 is up 0.44%.