Can an asyncio event loop run in the background without suspending the Python interpreter?

Question

The documentation for asyncio gives two examples for how to print \"Hello World\" every two seconds: https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio-eventloop.html#asyncio-hello-w

Answer 1

With Python 3.8, you can use the new asyncio REPL.

$ python -m asyncio
>>> async def greet_every_two_seconds():
...     while True:
...         print('Hello World')
...         await asyncio.sleep(2)
...
>>> # run in main thread (Ctrl+C to cancel)
>>> await greet_every_two_seconds()
...
>>> # run in background
>>> asyncio.create_task(greet_every_two_seconds())