New sub-variants of Coronavirus are increasingly appearing in Government statistics and clinical breakdowns of the virus' spread.

The BQ1 and XBB sub-variants of Omicron have surged overseas, and are also starting to pick up in Australia.

It's likely that they'll take over the BA5 subvariant that's been dominant for the past several months.

So what could these new variants bring and given they're likely to evade our immune systems, what could it mean for spread and severe disease?