Yes I read something similar. The overall numbers of simultaneous intelligent civilizations was enormous but once you spread them across the vast quantities of galaxies you might end up with just one or so in the Milky Way. The MW is so large that it is likely the civilizations would never know the others exist.
I believe God intentionally planned it in a way to keep us separated and keep us from wiping each other out.
It’s more of how many suitable planets are there for intelligent life to exist in our galaxy for a sufficient time to come and see us.
The Milky Way galaxy has 100-400 billion stars, but the much higher density of stars as one approaches the center of the galaxy would be more disruptive of a star’s solar system not to mention a greater probability of a nearby supernova damaging the planet. And stars too far from the center or the arms are not likely to have a sufficient supply of heavier elements to have rocky planets. Only those stars of a size similar to that of our sun and in one of the arms, but not too close to the center, might have a planet orbiting its sun not so close for a moderate temperature that it’s tidally locked to its orbit around the star.
And then there is the need to have larger gas planets in the solar system suburbs to suck up loose asteroids. Of course having a moon of the right size at the right distance is also important. And then there are a slew of planet parameters that are fairly tight to allow for Earth-like conditions.