On a night when bars are usually crowded, homes are typically filled with guests and celebrations ring out on busy city streets, New Year’s Eve was expected to be a quiet, lonelier night in 2020. Instead of ringing in the new year with midnight champagne surrounded by friends, most people — in southeastern Connecticut and across the globe — found themselves saying farewell, or good riddance, to 2020 safely in their homes, cozy on their couches with their closest family. In Waterford, Nancy and Jim Butler, both in their 70s, planned to ring in the new year at home, watching a livestream of the New York City ball drop and enjoying a chocolate dessert. It would be the first time in 35 years that they weren’t going to be on a dance floor when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.