But letting hundreds of thousands of infected people forgo those tests — even if, crucially, their symptoms were not entirely gone — risks seeding new cases and heaping even more pressure on already overburdened health systems, experts said in interviews on Tuesday.

“To me, this feels honestly more about economics than about the science,” said Yonatan Grad, an associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has tracked coronavirus infections in the National Basketball Association.

“I suspect what it will do is result in at least some people emerging from isolation more quickly, and so there’ll be more opportunities for transmission and that of course will accelerate the spread of Covid-19,” he added, noting that people were unlikely to adhere strictly to masking advice after leaving isolation.