BORIS Johnson tonight put a dent in hopes of a June 21 Independence Day after admitting the Indian variant could derail the roadmap.
The PM dropped the bombshell at a Downing Street briefing where he braced people in England for a longer lockdown.
Pals will still be able to meet in homes and pubs from Monday when the next state of lockdown easing goes ahead as planned.
But the scheduled end of all legal restrictions on June 21 could be kicked down the road if the super-infectious strain continues to spread.
Sounding a note of caution, the PM said: “I do not believe that we need, on the present evidence, to delay our roadmap and we will proceed with our plan to move to step three in England from Monday.
“But I have to level with you that this new variant could pose a serious disruption to our progress and could make it more difficult to move to step four in June.”
Spikes in cases of the highly-infectious Indian variant are causing a headache for ministers.
The PM announced the gap between first and second jabs would be slashed to eight weeks after cases of the new Covid strain more than doubled in the last week.
He admitted that the race between the vaccine programme and the virus was about to get tighter, and that the June 21 total reopening may now be thrown off track.
Today he’s taken swift action to get more second doses in people’s arms quicker, so they are even more protected against Covid.
Currently there’s a 12-week gap between first and second jabs, because studies have shown it generates more antibodies overall, but this will now be cut to eight.
He said tonight: “We will accelerate remaining second doses, especially for the clinically vulnerable, right across the country, to just eight weeks after the first date.
“And if you are in this group the NHS, will be in touch with you. We will also prioritise first jabs for anyone eligible who has not yet come forward.”
