First of all, this number screws up your theory - it doesn't look like the fat finger shorts were ever reported.
Dec 15, 2010 8,612 100.00 6,827,696 1.00 No No
The above makes the rest of your short numbers very questionable. And then ......
Daily volume used to cover Jan 14, 2011 432,542
eyeballed at about 850,000
01/18/11 0.245 0.44 0.245 0.375 379426
01/19/11 0.40 0.40 0.39 0.39 10250
01/20/11 0.35 0.36 0.35 0.36 3800
01/21/11 0.27 0.34 0.27 0.28 24899
01/24/11 0.28 0.28 0.23 0.28 3547
01/25/11 0.28 0.40 0.28 0.35 113644
01/26/11 0.30 0.51 0.30 0.51 201826
01/27/11 0.36 0.5095 0.36 0.43 36129
01/28/11 0.38 0.38 0.32 0.32 32663
01/31/11 0.32 0.32 0.30 0.30 39500
Daily short numbers, eyeballed at 400,000
01/18/2011 GBOE 231181 379426 61%
01/19/2011 GBOE 10000 10250 98%
01/20/2011 GBOE 3600 3800 95%
01/21/2011 GBOE 10053 24899 40%
01/24/2011 GBOE 900 3547 25%
01/25/2011 GBOE 52063 113644 46%
01/26/2011 GBOE 86689 201826 43%
01/27/2011 GBOE 500 36129 1%
Conclusion, they had to buy every single share that was available in order to cover.