This article is not new but you are more than welcome to apply for visitor, there is no such obligation which will prevent you from applying visitor visa while you applied for sponsorship/PR (all though most of the cases they will reject Visit visa's for spouse), however this article doesn't say/guarantee you to get the visitor visa for sure.
The whole purpose of this article is to prioritize/isolate the visitor visa's for immediate family members falling under this category.
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When answering the question on the application form about the
purpose of travel, enter the following information exactly as written to make sure your application is prioritized:
- For question 1 a) purpose of travel, choose “other” from the drop-down menu.
- For question 1 b) description field, write “COVID-19” exactly like this (you must use capital letters).
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So my guess is by choosing above mentioned options, IRCC will understand these applications will fall under certain category and visitor visas under this category will be prioritized (This is my guess)
Hope this helps
Thanks