Completely agree with you! And I couldn't really answer your question. At least from the website, there is nothing saying that covid related projects would weight more. I doubt that that would be the case too, since there are way too many students that don't study COVID that would be great candidates. But again, this is my personal option!
I feel like they are always looking mostly at leadership. I doubt that would change... but who knows. But I also doubt that the covid projects would weight much higher than others, again, I think they are mostly looking for the "leader" student. But I also could be wrong
Yes, I will make sure to do so. I believe last year was April 6th (based on me stocking twitter), but I'm not sure if it is usually early. Although the website says Early April!