newstart_MO said:

It helps to ask what evidence would change your mind before you look at any.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Take it one variable at a time. Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent argument can untangle them after the fact.

One concrete data point for the thread. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.

One thing that is still open after newstart_MO’s answer:

What did you change at the same time, and can you separate the two now?

hank_denver said:

One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. This treats a plausible mechanism as a demonstrated one. Plausible is where you start looking, not where you stop.

Reporting back.

Update, and it is the boring outcome: nothing was wrong. The measurement I was reading had moved less than its own week-to-week variation, which somebody said upthread and I did not believe.