Lot of people joining the pool will definitely have an effect. The size of the pool is also a cause of worry it crossed 80k for the first time. It was always in 60k's but touched 70k and it touched 80k pretty fast
Some one should do an analysis with this data for a projection
Yes lots of people are coming in as you can see there are 2184 people came in 451-600 range from 21st feb to 8th march in 15 days.
That accounts to 143 people per day in the past we seen around 90-110 people per day included in this range. As the draw was expected on 7th march I think the score would have shooted to 448-450 if the draw had happend on 7th march as well.
Lots of people are now aware of express entry and canadian immigration. Canada is accepting more and more people news is spreading like fire. That is the reason more and more people are making profiles.
In 2015 and 2016 the average score was 470-480 and lots of people did not wanted to try there luck as they knew that the score is hard to achieve but as scores drop below 450 more and more people now are coming up and hanging in.
To go with CIC were conducting back to back draws in early part of 2017 with on avg 3800 ITAs per draw which rapidly pushed down the score. In april 2017 they conducted 3 back to back draws of 3800 ITAs which resulted in 413 score