Crazy looking actual row count from explain analyze

Running 8.4.3, I have a table with 43 million rows. Two of the columns are
(topic_id int not null) and (status message_status_enum not null), where
message_status_enum is defined as
CREATE TYPE message_status_enum AS ENUM ( 'V', 'X', 'S', 'R', 'U', 'D' );

Among the indexes there is this:
"m_20100201_topic_multi" btree (topic_id, status, source_category_id,
alg_ci_rank_rollup)

..see that topic_id and status are the leading edge of the index.
Fact: there are no rows with status 'S' or 'X'
Fact: there are no rows with topic_id = 1

Consider, then...

explain analyze select count(*) from m_20100201 where status in ('S','X');
QUERY
PLAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aggregate (cost=987810.75..987810.76 rows=1 width=0) (actual
time=2340.193..2340.194 rows=1 loops=1)
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on m_20100201 (cost=987806.75..987810.75 rows=1
width=0) (actual time=2340.191..2340.191 rows=0 loops=1)
Recheck Cond: (status = ANY ('{S,X}'::message_status_enum[]))
-> Bitmap Index Scan on m_20100201_topic_multi
(cost=0.00..987806.75 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=2334.371..2334.371
rows=126336 loops=1)
Index Cond: (status = ANY ('{S,X}'::message_status_enum[]))

What I don't understand is the "actual rows" of 126,336 in the bitmap index
scan. I would expect it to have to scan every index entry, but doesn't this
output mean that it's *returning* 126K rows from that scan? Whereas I think
it should return zero.

I have already fixed this query by adding a better index. But the point of
this post is simply to understand this explain analyze output. Thanks!

--gordon

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