I think I found what I want. I need to do the following:

import asyncio

async def long_task():
    try:
        async with asyncio.timeout(5):
            print("Long task started")
            await asyncio.sleep(10)  # Simulate a long operation
            return "Long task completed"
    except asyncio.TimeoutError:
        # Do something when you reached timout
    except asyncio.CancelledError:
        print("Long task cancelled")
        raise
 
async def main():
    background_task = asyncio.create_task(long_task())

    # Do useful work

asyncio.run(main())