I suspect 'read' is something approaching the read time (arguably you can read things in half the official read time). 'View' is anything shorter than that. And if you view multiple times, it's probably multiple views - because it's views, not viewers. Commenting takes time so adds to read time, as does reading the comments.

You might do well to ask Medium, but suspect they might not answer.

Also, I've been told the watching videos embedded doesn't count towards the read time recorded, but I don't know about that. I've not been able to find anything official that indicates one way or the other.