It sounds like it would be equivalent to humans evolving bulletproof skin. (quote is from their original paper which is linked in the article)
- bacteria evolve much, much faster and over a wider range of capabilities than you'd think, so this is possible - hell, even probable - given the range of extremophiles we've seen
- for practical purposes, though, every adaptation comes with a cost, though, and the bacteria are not currently immune to this treatment because whatever they use for their membranes in absence of this threat is cheaper than something not vulnerable to this, which means this adaptation is disadvantaged where the polymers are not present
- the amount of time a bacterial colony has to evolve a response is basically limited to the amount of time it takes for a dose to kill the entire colony, which may not be long enough to reach a solution given the distance the genome would have to travel
- but, re: point 1, it's not guaranteed forever, which is why no scientist will say so
- but the media sure will, and for practical purposes may not be wrong
You don’t need bulletproof skin if you can avoid being shot.