Even before the coronavirus “poured gasoline on an already existing fire,” KCPT and PBS planned an intense public awareness campaign baring diabetes as “a silent killer” threatening millions of Americans.

• Watch the documentary here.

• Watch the KCPT forum here.

• Go to KCPT’s diabetes resource page here.

A late March public forum in Kansas City had to be canceled that was supposed to accompany the release of the documentary “Blood Sugar Rising.”

That forum aired this past week as a Zoom call bringing together Betty Drees, and endocrinologist with the University of MIssouri-Kansas City, Qiana Thomason, the CEO of the Health Forward Foundation, 17-year-old Sarah Golder who lives with Type I diabetes, and public health activist and radio host Jim Nunnelly.

The threat of the virus heightens the pressures on communities most vulnerable to diabetes, Thomason said. Unemployment that falls heavily on lower income families and communities of color is exacerbating the difficulties of obtaining accessible healthy food, she said.

That compounds conditions that put people into the category of Type II diabetes or pre-diabetes because of increasing blood sugar, because people in financial distress and in food deserts “cut corners,” Thomason said, leading to “more food high in fat, high in sugar — processed foods that I call fake food.”

Coronavirus, if contracted, is a threat to anyone, Drees said, but someone with diabetes “is more likely to have a severe outcome.”

“We’re in a horrible situation now,” Nunnelly said, “where we are pouring gasoline on an already existing fire.”

But the increasing awareness of diabetes, how to improve one’s health to resist the disease, is a welcoming development, the panelists said.