I am not so sure as to why your application has not progressed from an "application received" stage to an "in process" one. My mom and I applied for her in September 2018, and our status was changed to "in process" in March 2020. I am a Canadian national and she is the one requesting an exemption on the basis of H and C reasons.
Given that your status has not changed. It means that your application has yet to be put into process, and once that happens it will then be assigned to a case processing officer for further adjudication and for the purpose of making a decision on your file.
Let's say if a positive decision is granted, you will then be notified to meet the other admissibility requirements, i.e. health, security, and criminality checks.
Things like health checks are now often being done before AIP these why I keep saying that the past two phase process is no longer what is actually happening. There was a strict order of how H&C were processed. Sometime in the past year there has been some changes. I assume it is to try and speed up processing as the volume of people applying for H&C increases and the wait times increase.