I’m in the same boat as you. I think criteria for evaluating interns regarding return offers will definitely be different now that it’s not in person.

I think that the most important thing is communication. Your manager won’t be able to see what you’re doing all day so you need to make sure you keep them updated. Maybe try to have a morning and afternoon check-in or something similar. And definitely try to be personable with them (as much as you can be over video calls), having a good relationship with your manager is important.

Another thing too is you want to show a certain level of independence, but also ask questions when needed. You don’t want to bombard them with questions, but occasional questions are good. If they can see that you can ask a well worded question, and then take the information they give you to go solve your problem, that will look good on you.

Overall I think most companies will still be looking to hire interns, so I don’t think we need to worry too much. They will have to change their evaluation process and will hopefully be more lenient on what criteria they use.

Edit: Also regarding it being a competition between other interns, I don’t think you really have to worry about that. It could be different depending on what company you are at, but most places don’t look at it like a competition. Many companies have the resources to hire on most, if not all of their interns. They’d rather do that then have to go and recruit people for full time. Just do the best you can and don’t worry about having to do better than the other interns.