PARIS, Jan 10 (CGTN) - European governments are relaxing COVID-19 curbs in the face of much more contagious but seemingly less lethal coronavirus variant Omicron.

Even though infections are yet to peak in Europe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the time was right to start evaluating the disease's evolution "with different parameters."

The mass return of children to school after Christmas holidays is evidence that few wish to see a return to the online-only learning that marked some of the early waves of infection.

Even as France registered a record seven-day average of almost 270,000 cases a day, it eased testing protocols for schoolchildren, saying too many classes were closed.

Governments in Europe also imposed severe lockdowns in the first phases of the pandemic – with enormous damage to economies – but now want to avoid that, knowing that Omicron is putting far fewer people in hospital, not least because many or most are vaccinated.