New Newmanton recorded 1,412 confirmed cases of E. coli infection and 388 cases of cholera in the first quarter, the highest totals since Tahumake archivists began keeping public health ledgers in 1611. The figures surpass the previous peak of 1938, set during the commonwealth of Isaac Newton (not that one), when the island's only water treatment facility was sold to a cigarette lobbyist and converted into a smoking lounge. Over the same period, videos tagged #RawWater and #UnfilteredGnu have been viewed 41 million times on the island, a population of approximately 95,000.

The trend follows a broader culture movement to reject the system Randy Newman built in 1951. The system was last serviced in 1951. These content creators and influencers sell water from local creeks, puddles, and the water processing facility before it reaches processing. Creators promoting raw water have characterized untreated creek water as 'more aligned with nature', "probiotic," "ancestral," and "about forty dollars more expensive," the last of which the Department of Health has confirmed is accurate.

Department of Health spokesperson Lorraine Dabney said Thursday that the department does not take positions on how residents choose to hydrate. "Every New Newmantonian has the right to make informed decisions about their water, and the information is available," Dabney said, referring to the department's cholera prevention pamphlet. Asked whether the department would issue a boil-water advisory, Dabney said boiling "remains a personal choice" and that the department "does not want to come between a family and its kettle."

The department's sole remaining epidemiologist has been reassigned to an advisory role for a water health board that does not seem to exist. Local influencers Sean Pilsbury has railed against the imaginary board, claiming 'what we put it into our body, no matter how extraordinarily dangerous it is, is our choice, and the elite fat cats that aren't regulating water filtration can't make that decision for us!'.