> In this case I'm not sure how this is different from the current "get_event_loop"

Thread may have multiple event loops, but only one, explicitly associated, is default. And it's not necessary one which is currently running.

I think what I propose here can be expressed in Python terms as an implicit context manager that replaces Thread's default event loop once while it "runs" particular event loop then switches it back (possible to None) once loop is stopped.