It is possible someone is trying to develop these commercially (likely, I'd guess) but if they're just observing natural mutation and reporting it I'm not sure

It is possible someone is trying to develop these commercially (likely, I'd guess) but if they're just observing natural mutation and reporting it I'm not sure there needs to be a timeline. They have evolved, but there aren't a ton of them yet. It's not very surprising to me that this happened. Just consider how many times covid has mutated and then extrapolate out to how much genetic diversity is likely in play. I do think if it were being done by humans in a lab intentionally even directed evolution would work this out in a few years. In the environment they're competing against other microbes that eat sugars and other easier to grow on stuff so I'd expect these to be a niche species.