Inaccuracy in the Kotlin Coroutines DEEP DIVE book regarding `async` or am I missing something here?

In Kotlin Coroutines, the author gives this example to show how we can use async to run 2 HTTP requests concurrently:

Before

“`kotlin fun showNews() { viewModelScope.launch { val config = getConfigFromApi() // 1 sec val news = getNewsFromApi(config) // 1 sec val user = getUserFromApi() // 1 sec –> total: 3 secs

 view.showNews(user, news) } 

} “`

After

“`kotlin fun showNews() { viewModelScope.launch { val config = async { getConfigFromApi() }
val news = async { getNewsFromApi(config.await()) } val user = async { getUserFromApi() }

 view.showNews( user.await(), // 1 sec news.await() // 2 sec // --> total: parallel(1, 2) secs = max(1, 2) secs = 2 secs ) } 

} “`

But this only seems to work if we use a non-blocking HTTP client API. For example, if I use URL/URLConnection, the total time will remain equal to 3 seconds as before, because:

1- URL/URLConnection do not have any suspendible functions/suspense points:

“`kotlin fun getUserFromApi(): String { val urlConnection = URL(someUrl).openConnection() val inputStream = urlConnection.getInputStream() val reader = BufferedReader(InputStreamReader(inputStream)) val stringBuilder = StringBuilder()

var line: String? while (reader.readLine().also { line = it } != null) { stringBuilder.append(line).append("n") } reader.close() inputStream.close() return stringBuilder.toString() 

} “`

2- viewModelScope.launch { } runs all coroutines on a single main thread.

So in order to reduce the total time from 3s to 2s, we should at least use a multi-threaded dispatcher, such as Dispatchers.IO:

“`kotlin fun showNews() { viewModelScope.launch { val config = async(Dispatchers.IO) { getConfigFromApi() }
val news = async(Dispatchers.IO) { getNewsFromApi(config.await()) } val user = async(Dispatchers.IO) { getUserFromApi() }

 view.showNews( user.await(), // 1 sec news.await() // 2 sec --> total: parallel(1, 2) secs = max(1, 2) secs = 2 secs ) } 

} “`

Am I correct?