London (AFP) – Europe on Wednesday began easing travel bans on Britain put in place to contain a new strain of Covid-19 that UK officials believe is spreading faster as WHO experts were set to meet on a response to the variant. The discovery of the new coronavirus type set off alarm bells worldwide just as vaccines are being rolled out to halt a pandemic that has claimed more than 1.7 million lives since it began a year ago in China. But the European Commission has urged EU nations to reopen their borders to Britain and replace the blockades with mandatory tests for arrivals. France’s relaxa…