My guess is they’re saying if you have a population of 20, you have 20 chances of mutation. If you have a population of 200M, you have 200M chances of mutation. Size matters.
India is indeed struggling. They had the good fortune of being hit later than other countries,but they will likely be hit worse.
Of course, when articles critical of India will appear, you'll probably again complain that they are left-wing propaganda against Modi.