In the world of sports, winning the game in the homestretch sometimes seems the toughest part of the challenge. That certainly is the case with getting people immunized against the deadly COVID-19 virus, public health and government officials are finding.

Civic and religious leaders are stumped as well, with all collectively pondering why it has been so hard to get some people to realize there is a growing risk of death from the virus, or one of its aggressive variants, absent twin doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson inoculation. It seems like a risk young Black and brown people are willing to take, much to the dismay of their older relatives, friends and mentors.

“I think it is probably a distrust of government and authority figures in general,” said Richmond native Jonathan D. Davis, an advertising design teacher at the state Juvenile Justice Department’s Yvonne B. Miller High School and president of the Richmond Crusade for Voters.

“If they are not out here getting vaccinated, we could have a whole type of (pandemic) wave in the fall,” he said, echoing the fears expressed by others of a repeat of 2020’s COVID-19 shut down and gruesome death toll.

It’s not just older adults like Mr. Davis, 60, who are voicing concerns about those reluctant to get COVID-19 shots. Anxiety also is being expressed by younger people, like 22-year-old Kayla Maben, a Norfolk State University nursing student from Goochland.

“People are not educating themselves enough about the vaccine,” Ms. Maben said. “They are just believing the word on the street,” where unscientific speculation runs rampant both by word of mouth and via the internet, she said.

Some websites revisit and enhance the tragic Tuskegee syphilis experiment conducted from 1932 to 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention targeting uneducated Black men in laying out their skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccines. Some people talk about government health tests and offer unofficial assertions that the vaccines are some form of “cocktail of unsafe drugs” or unknown medicines and raise red flags about whether the vaccine could impact pregnancy.

Ms. Maben said she and her friends got vaccinated before taking a trip to Miami in May.

“They were doing what they could to protect themselves and others,” she said. “You got to take the chance and get the shot.”

Despite stepped up efforts by city government and health officials, the numbers paint a bleak picture.

In Virginia, only 33.4 percent of the Black population is fully vaccinated, according to state Health Department data.Among Latinos, the percentage rises slightly to 37.9 percent, while 42 percent of the state’s white population is fully vaccinated.

The vaccination figures are even lower in Richmond among Black people and Latinos, who comprise 47 percent and 31.2 percent of the city’s population respectively.

According to state data, only 26.6 percent of Black people in Richmond, and 33.7 of Latinos, are fully vaccinated, while 49.6 percent of white people in the city are vaccinated.

Since the start of the pandemic, Black people and Latinos across the nation have disproportionately been hardest hit by the virus. According to the latest data in Virginia, Black people are only 19 percent of the state population but make up 22 percent of COVID-19 cases statewide and 25 percent of deaths.

Latinos, who are 9 percent of Virginia’s population, make up 16 percent of cases and 6 percent of deaths statewide.

More than 683,000 cases of COVID-19 have been logged in Virginia resulting in more than 11,460 deaths.

Today’s young people “are driven by different things,” said Dr.Emanuel C. Harris, president of the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Richmond and Vicinity, a group of more than 50 ministers representing congregations across the metro area including in Richmond and Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland and Amelia counties.

The “young generation is not afraid of death,” as they hear news of it almost every day, unfortunately, Dr. Harris said. The discussion about the pandemic may seem confusing to some, he said, and many just don’t want to talk about it.

Dr. Harris, senior pastor for the past nine years at Jerusalem Baptist Church — Manakin in Goochland County, said the region actually has made great strides in tackling the virus since the spread began in March 2020. He said early on, member pastors were divided about 50-50 in how to address the crisis.

The thinking of the religious leaders has changed “a lot” since then, Dr. Harris said. “Those of us who have been on the front lines and seen it have lost members and done funerals. It’s not a game to us,” he said.

For sure, various COVID-19 data sets show a steady downward drop in vaccinations compared to a dramatic surge in earlier months when the public health message was targeted toward protecting the elderly and ill. President Biden’s push to get 70 percent of adult Americans vaccinated with at least one dose by the Fourth of July gave a big boost to the efforts by state health officials. Radio, newspaper and television commercials about the vaccine flooded local markets with the additional launch of a variety of incentives to get people to roll up their sleeves and get a shot.

In metro Richmond, vaccines are being given at community outreach festivals, gospel concerts and pop music shows, ice cream shops, Walmarts and independently owned pharmacies.

“At VCU Medical Center, we offer the COVID-19 vaccine to all our patients, whether they see us for a routine appointment or seek our care unexpectedly for an emergency,” said Laura Rossacher, director of public affairs for VCU Health. VCU has myriad efforts to get people to get vaccinations, she said.

Mr. Davis said vaccine ef- forts now may require a focused, intense campaign aimed at young people age 12 and older, just as the early campaigns targeted the elderly and most vulnerable healthwise.

“Even if we just focus in the Richmond area, we need some leaders, young stars, singers and rappers,” he said. “Somewhere, we need to get a coordinated effort.”