Your explanation is spot on. It's been driving me crazy...

Your explanation is spot on. It's been driving me crazy trying to make sense of the lack of correlation between daily volumes and outstanding shorts, but the 4m drop on Dec 1st, disclosed today, led me to hours of digging online to try to understand what I was missing and then, bingo, contained in one of the many documents I read was the formula for total shorts reported and the bit I hadn't comprehended was that borrowed stock is considered shorted as soon as it is lent. So, in the event of a lender wanting their stock back, or you just deciding to return some borrowed stock, if you hadn't sold it yet there is no need to buy it back on market and the return of stock simply triggers a reduction in total shorts without any corresponding buybacks necessary. My new concern, however, is that we have no idea how many shares are genuinely shorted (i.e. have been borrowed AND sold on market). I have been viewing the 14m+ reported shorts as a positive with the belief that they will all need to be bought back on market eventually, but today's revelation suggests, that in theory, as long as you keep borrowing at the same rate as you are buying back, you could be closing out your position whilst total shorts appears unchanged. Then, once you have closed your position you just return the borrowed stock that was masking your buying. Granted there is a cost associated with borrowing stock, but if every dollar the stock rises is going to cost you an extra $14m+ to close out your shorts you could probably justify those borrowing costs.
I may be completely wrong, but it's the first I'd heard of it and the first thing that makes sense. Albeit frustrating on paper, the price suppression has allowed additional opportunities to accumulate at very low prices. My two bobs worth anyway. As always DYOR & GLTAH
P.S. thanks to all the regular posters. I've been riding the bumps with you all from the shadows for years and am very appreciative of everyone's contributions. 2024 going to be a cracker!