It really amazes me how I waited roughly 5.5 months for AOR and magically November apps are getting it in 2.5 to three months. Furthermore how some April apps have not received it. The virus is apparently worse now than it was June, July, August. Wow is all I can say.
Keep in mind that it took 5.5 months because everyone in the world was freaking out over COVID. Since then, people have calmed down and are either not taking as much precautions or have found ways to work around the pandemic. I think many of the AORs that we are seeing are due to them just scanning in the files and not the fact that they are necessarily at the point of processing them. If you look at the inland part of the spreadsheet, they pretty much caught up to date on inland applicants for AORs, but many of them took a long time to move on to the next steps. I also saw a surge in dates around the end of September where tons of them got AORs in just a few days. I assume that they started scanning them in and, therefore, gave an application number to them and sent the emails. Plus, they seem to have split up the case loads to multiple locations. Many have reported that they sent their apps to Ottawa. As far as I can see, the theory is that they changed some "decision makers" over from some other category to spousal and have been sending that office many of the applications. I am sure they are just grabbing stacks of files randomly and then scanning them in for remote workers, which is inline with their news release. Additionally, keep in mind that many people do not go back to update their lines on the spreadsheet. I have looked at ones that are years old and many of the lines are not filled in.
We are all waiting and are separated from our spouses or not where we want to be. It is tough. I personally was going to submit in March or April, but COVID stopped me and my waiting just added more time. But remember: What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and the good lord never puts more in your path than you can handle. You will get through all this. We all will.