Your own metaphor is a hopeless quagmire.
You DON’T drink the scum. You purify it by pulling only the essential water from the filth, leaving the filth behind.
So even in this mess of a parable, of your own concoction, you’re getting it wrong. The key was for the Harris admin aka the puddle, to understand that humans cannot survive on toxic water. The only way to survive is to remove the pathogens.