Earlier quoted context omitted.
Short interest is high, but AFAIK, none of the reporting tells you what price the shorts sold for. If the shorts from $20 all got out, and you're seeing new shorts that got in wednesday, the dynamic is much different.
Is there any way to know if that has happened? I imagine if a big player knew this or it leaked from a credible source, the stock could crash.
I don't think this type of information is publicly reported; or really aggregated anywhere. The brokers whose clients sold short presumably know the clients positions, and the clients know their positions, but absent an aggregated report across brokerages of that, nobody would know the whole picture. A brokerage probably has a duty to keep their clients' positions confidential, however.
I don't know how securities lending is organized. If it's centralized around a single vendor like clearing and depository is; maybe that vendor would know when shares were borrowed and returned, and could guess about the positions. Similarly, brokerages with lending programs should know when their clients' shares were borrowed and returned and could have a partial picture. This may again be data the brokerage or the lending facilitators would have a duty to keep confidential.